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WHAT GERMANY WANTS 




Emperor William II at his desk in his villa on the 
Island of Corfu. 



WHAT GERMANY 

WANTS 



BY 

EDMUND VON MACH 



NON-REFERT 




pqwvad • ais 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1914 






Copyright, 1914, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 



Published, October, 1914 



m -4 19/4 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. 8. A. 






^ 



A PERSONAL FOREWORD 

During the preparation of this book the writer 
received from his uncle, a veteran army officer 
living in Dresden, a brief note containing the 
following laconic record : 

1793, your great grandfather at Kostheim. 

1815, your grandfather at Liegnitz. 

1870, myself — all severely wounded by 
French bullets. 

1914, my son, captain in the 6th Regiment of 
Dragoons. 

Four generations obliged to fight the French! 

When the writer turns to his American friends 
of French descent, he finds there similar records, 
and often even greater sorrow, for death has 
come to many of them. In Europe their families 
and his have looked upon each other as enemies 
for generations, while a few years in the clarify- 
ing atmosphere of America have made friends of 
former Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, and 
Englishmen. 

Jointly they pray that the present war may not 
be carried to such a pass that an early and honor- 
able peace becomes impossible for any one of 



vi WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

these great nations. Is it asking too much that 
America may be vouchsafed in not too distant 
a future to do for their respective native lands 
what the American institutions have done for 
them individually, help them to regard each other 
at their true worth, unblinded by traditional 
hatred or fiery passion? 

In the tense moments of personal or interna- 
tional intercourse, blessed are the contestants 
who have a wise and a steadfast friend, one who, 
knowing both sides, can reconcile their funda- 
mental differences. Since war is generally only 
the culmination of many previous grievances and 
misunderstandings, the friend who will give 
more time to a study of the true aims of the con- 
testants than to their claims and counter-claims 
in their moments of heated passion, is likely to 
be most serviceable. 

This is the purpose of the present book, to 
show that Germany too had " hitched her wagon 
to a star." If there had been the least danger of 
doing more than this, namely of unloading on 
any one of the other nations the bitterness which 
many Americans have felt towards Germany, 
the book would not have been written, for Amer- 
ica can be the helpful friend only if bitterness 
gives way to sympathy. 

May there come out of this terrific struggle 
ways and means of preventing similar tragedies 



A PERSONAL FOREWORD vii 

in the future, not by laws and regulations, but by 
a better understanding and a higher morality of 
the peoples of the world. And may America, 
who has adopted the sons of so many nations, 
lead the way and gain the gratitude of mankind ! 



CONTENTS 



A Personal Foreword 
I. What Germany Wants 
II. Alsace - Lorraine 

III. The German Emperor 

IV. The Past . 
V. The New Empire 

VI. Russia, the Slavs, and Germany . 
VII. Germany and Continental Europe 
VIII. Germany and England . 

IX. Militarism 

X. Conclusion 

Appendix A. The Chancellor's 
Speech in the Reichstag, August 5, 

1914 

Appendix B. Quotations from the 
British " Bernhardi "... 



PAGE 
V 

I 

17 
24 
40 

49 
60 
80 

99 
123 

137 



146 



154 



What Germany Wants 

CHAPTER I 

WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

In moments of great stress, when horror at ter- 
rible agonies strikes deep into the souls of men, 
their overwrought nerves need an outlet some- 
where. Those friends of Germany who see in 
the spontaneous outburst against that land only 
hatred, ignorance, and prejudice, do not know 
America. If Americans could not give vent to 
their pent-up emotions by joining in the head- 
liner's righteous indignation at the less harrowing 
concomitants of war, such as the burning of a 
city, but were obliged to think of war itself, of 
the " poor devils " dying in the ditches, of the 
machine guns w^iping out with a few turns of the 
crank the youths of an entire village; if they 
were forced to think of the wounded over whose 
maimed bodies the battles are raging, or of 
those who are forgotten and alone, they would 
not be Americans, warm-hearted and quick of 
sympathy, if they could stand it. 



2 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

Underneath all this seeming bluster and seem- 
ing bitterness the real American, even he of Ger- 
man descent, detects the desire of all classes to 
be fair to the contestants. This appeared very 
clearly in the advice of prominent men publicly 
offered in the early days of the v^ar, to the effect 
that America should distinguish between the Kai- 
ser and the German people. Later it was found 
that no such distinction could be made because 
the agreement between the German people and 
the Emperor had never been closer than it was in 
the early days of August, 19 14, and is today. 

Many friends of Germany, in their eagerness 
to plead her cause, have added to the general 
confusion by attacking the sincerity of her oppo- 
nents. As if a course could be made righteous 
by the mere fact that there was unrighteousness 
also on the other side. This argument is useless 
in America, where people are convinced that 
Heaven does not always employ angels only to 
carry out its purposes. 

Paul Rohrbach, a well-known German publi- 
cist, has stated the case very well, when he said 
to his countrymen two years ago : " We need not 
disguise the fact from ourselves that in many 
parts of the world we are less liked than, for 
instance, the English or the French. People will 
say how can this be possible, since both England 
and France have often been guilty of violence 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 3 

and insolence in their dealings with weaker 
nations? This is true, but the more important 
fact is also true, that powerful cultural influences 
have emanated from both countries, and have 
been gratefully felt in the whole world. Many 
people therefore possess a vivid picture of what 
the English and the French people have done for 
the culture of the world while few have any 
similar feeling toward Germany. Individual 
citizens of foreign states who have made our 
acquaintance or whose education enables them to 
appreciate even without such an acquaintance the 
German contributions to the general culture of 
the world, will no doubt do justice to our achieve- 
ments, but nations as such are little acquainted 
with each other, and are hardly able to judge one 
another objectively and fairly. It is therefore 
not at all astonishing that the younger people of 
the western hemisphere, whose states have re- 
cently been formed, and the older states of 
Asia, who are gradually leaving their seclusion 
of thousands of years, should know little more 
of us than our most recent accomplishments since 
the foundations of the German Empire. Our 
former achievements, such as the liberation of the 
human mind in the age of the Reformation, the 
part we played in the literature of the world from 
the middle of the eighteenth century to the early 
nineteenth century, and the foundation of the 



4 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

philosophy of ideas, these are all matters which 
people of average cultivation do not understand. 
What people do know is this — forty years ago 
the Germans suddenly rose from an existence 
which was insignificant both economically and 
politically to one of great strength; they fought 
for and won the rank of a world power, and have 
since created a mighty army; they have tre- 
mendously increased their commerce and their 
industries, and have built ships; and they have 
now also begun to demand consideration for 
their interests in the world at large." 

Friends of Germany should be grateful for 
every American who knows Germany better than 
Rohrbach here implies — and there are many — 
and should endeavor to supply all the others with 
information from which to form a correct pic- 
ture of the fatherland. 

England is pretty well understood here; not 
a saint by any means forgetful of her own 
interests, but on the whole drawing nearer all 
the time to the moral perfection which her 
leaders proclaim, and advancing the civilization 
of the world in a way that America can under- 
stand. 

France, once the mistress of the world and 
still holding a preeminent place, is dear to 
Americans because of the charm of her lan- 
guage, her art, her good taste, the courtesy of 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 5 

her people, her form of government, and the 
help she gave America in her War of Independ- 
ence. 

Russia is very little known, although her liter- 
ature, her art, and her music are constant topics 
of study and conversation. As a country she is 
felt to be a power with which the world has to 
reckon. She is, she was, and she will be. 

Whoever, therefore, is to blame for the actual 
outbreak of this war, the belief is widely held that 
Germany and her aspirations were directly or 
indirectly responsible for it. It can be freely 
admitted that there are aspects of the situation 
under which such an interpretation is possible, 
and it is therefore at this point that the question 
arises, What does Germany want? 

This is the really important question and one 
which it should not be impossible to answer. It 
differs therefore from others which it would 
seem futile to propose at present for only the 
future will be able to decide whether Germany, 
or Russia, or perhaps Great Britain, could have 
avoided the war; whether the Allies or the Ger- 
mans are responsible for the atrocities men- 
tioned in the papers, or whether, perhaps, both 
should be acquitted from the charges of unnec- 
essary brutality. To a certain extent the facts 
are not yet available, and to a certain extent the 
perfectly natural bias of the several editors — 



6 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

they would not be human if they could refrain 
from taking sides — presents the facts in such a 
way that the careful reader must refuse to form 
his opinion only on what he reads. On Septem- 
ber 28, for instance, one paper contained this 
item under the caption " A Detestable Form of 
Warfare " : " Can anyone doubt what would 
have been the answer of Frederick the Great, 
Napoleon, Wellington, Lee, or Grant, had it been 
proposed to them to drop bombs into the throng 
of Sunday promenaders of a city not besieged or 
invested? . . . These great generals bombarded 
cities whose inmates had to take the chances of 
war. But there is a distinction between bom- 
bardment and bomb dropping under such condi- 
tions as governed the practice in Paris yester- 
day." Another daily referred to exactly the 
same incident as follows : " The dramatic event 
of yesterday was the attack on the Eiffel Tower 
by a German aircraft which suddenly appeared 
high above Paris and made four unsuccessful 
attempts from a great height to wreck this well- 
known landmark. It would have been a pretty 
coup had it succeeded, as it would have cut off 
wireless communication between France and 
Russia, a thing which the Germans no doubt are 
very desirous of accomplishing. The casualties 
resulting from this unsuccessful attack were 
small. The accounts differ as to whether there 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 7 

were any fatalities or not. In some a man and 
a child were killed, in others only injured." 

Which account should a man in search of the 
truth believe ? Did the Germans wish to destroy 
the Eiffel Tower with its powerful wireless sta- 
tion and was the resulting injury to the civilian 
bystanders one of the unavoidable chances of 
war? Or did the Germans, in fiendish brutality, 
drop bombs on a throng of .Sunday promenaders, 
using the Eiffel Tower as a pretext ? Unless the 
reader has a previous knowledge of the character 
of the German people which makes the one or 
the other account probable, he is at a loss, since 
the proof of the accuracy of either report is ob- 
viously impossible at present. 

The character of the German people, however, 
will be fairly well established when their aspira- 
tions are known and an answer is given to the 
question. What does Germany want? 

Some people may feel that a satisfactory an- 
swer has been supplied by such books as Ger- 
many and the Next War, by General von Bern- 
hardi, and Pan-Germanism by Professor Roland 
G. Usher. Since the German, Bernhardi, and the 
American, Usher, are said to be in substantial 
agreement, and the present war, in general, 
seems to follow Bernhardi's prophecies, it is 
natural that these two writers should seem to be 
correct. > 



8 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

The conclusions which the reading public has 
drawn from them are briefly these: Germany, 
drunk with her material successes of the recent 
past and trusting in the strength of her huge 
army, has formed the plan of conquering the 
world. She has nailed to her mast Madame de 
Stael's motto " The patriotism of nations ought 
to be selfish ", and recognizes no other law than 
that of brute force. The present war marks a 
step in her well-planned scheme. If successful, 
she will annex Belgium and Holland, humiliate 
France, try to despoil Great Britain of her navy 
and her colonies, push Russia back towards Asia, 
and establish, together with Austria, a huge 
Balkan empire which will open for her a way to 
Egypt and India. Just what will become of Italy 
and Spain is not quite clear for, without resting 
on her laurels, Germany will turn her eyes unto 
the western hemisphere and make war on the 
United States of America. 

Although few readers believe that Germany 
will succeed in the first step of this career they see 
nothing improbable in Professor Usher's presen- 
tation, for, whom the gods would destroy they 
first make mad, and Germany is riding for a fall. 

Those who know Germany do not agree with 
Professor Usher, but then — that is their opinion 
against his. Unfortunately for his argument 
Mr. Usher has added to his book a bibliography 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 9 

which at least casts doubts on the impartiality of 
his judgment for it shows that he consulted many 
British journals, the Encyclopcudia Britannica, 
nth Edition, six British books, three French 
books, and not a single German book, while he 
says of a volume of essays by British and Ger- 
man statesmen " They do not afford much infor- 
mation." He thus leaves us in doubt as to the 
sources and contexts of those German writings 
on which he has obviously drawn in support of 
his own theory. They would seem to be taken 
largely from the writings of a so-called Pan- 
Germanic league which Mr. Usher himself con- 
siders of insufficient importance to deserve men- 
tion in his bibliography. 

Nobody can deny that there may be persons 
in Germany holding the views attributed to the 
German nation by Mr. Usher, and that some 
British publicists have frightened their country- 
men into regarding the Germans as dangerous 
madmen. 

It is more difficult to prove that General von 
Bernhardi also does not adequately represent the 
Germans. Since the war began he and his wri- 
tings have jumped into public notice, and in a 
much quoted interview (September 27, 19 14) 
President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stan- 
ford University, relates that he heard Bernhardi 
lecture in San Francisco on May 25, 1913: 



10 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

" He had been on a tour round the world, stop- 
ping at places where there were Germans, and 
giving lectures under the official support of the 
consuls of the Empire, and with the respective 
consuls presiding in the chair." 

At that time the author was the president of 
the Bostoner Deutsche Gesellschaft, a society of 
about six hundred members, Americans, Ger- 
mans, and Frenchmen, interested in all phases of 
German culture. He was constantly on the look- 
out for speakers of prominence and was in close 
touch with the Germanistic Society of America. 
The German consul in Boston was a member of 
the governing board of the Gesellschaft and so 
were several professors of the neighborhood 
whose intimate relations with the German Gov- 
ernment are well-known. The German Ambas- 
sador was an honorary member of the Gesell- 
schaft. Bernhardi's name was not brought to 
the attention of the lecture committee through 
any one of these channels, which proves that his 
writings meant little or nothing to the Germans 
of New England. Their number may be com- 
paratively small but since most of them have 
home ties in Germany it would seem that also 
there Bernhardi was not the man of the hour he 
is believed to have been. 

As a matter of fact, Bernhardi's book did not 
voice the popular sentiment of Germany, for 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 11 

Bernhardi himself said in his introduction : " In 
striking contrast to this military aptitude [of the 
Germans] they have today become a peace- 
loving — an almost too peace-loving nation. A 
rude shock is needed to awaken their warlike in- 
stincts, and compel them to show their military 
strength," These words were written in Octo- 
ber, 191 1, and no rude shock came to awaken 
the German nation from pursuing its ways of 
peace until August, 19 14. 

The reason why Bernhardi's book, Germany 
and the Next War, did not make a greater stir 
was that such books ^ are by no means rare in 
Europe. Written by military men, they are often 
altogether technical, as for instance General von 
Bernhardi's other great book War Today, and 
when they touch upon social and political mat- 
ters they are often so extreme that people do not 
acknowledge them as true. 

In the same year 191 1 a French officer, Colo- 
nel Arthur Boucher, published a book entitled 
La France Victorieuse dans la Guerre de Demain 
(France Victorious in the Next War) ; and 
even more remarkable was La Guerre de Demain 
(The Next War) by M. Keller, published Sep- 
tember 10, 1 89 1, in which not only the invasion 

1 For a very similar book presenting the British view see The 
Day of the Saxon, by Homer Lea, in which Great Britain is urged 
first to attack and to destroy Germany^ and then to attack 
Russia. For extracts from this book see Appendix B. 



12 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

^■^f but also the final annexation of Belgium by 
France was outlined. These designs on the neu- 
trality of Belgium induced Charles Woeste, ex- 
Minister of Justice, to write his eloquent book 
La Neutralite Beige (Brussels, 1891). 

While the two French books mentioned and 
their discussions of tactical problems may have 
been carefully studied by the French General 
Staff nobody would be rash enough to claim 
that they were representative of the aspirations 
of the French people. The same is true of Bern- 
hardi's book published under a similar title. In 
so far as his advice is strategically good it will 
probably be followed by the German army; but 
it will, on reflection, hardly be doubted that 
Bernhardi neither spoke for the Germans as 
such, nor that his book had any influence on the 
people as a whole. 

If, then, Pan-Germanism is not what Germany 
wants what was the purpose of her huge arma- 
ments which brought her to the brink of bank- 
ruptcy, as has been claimed, and made an 
" armed camp " of her country? 

Strangely enough neither of these assertions, 

• both of which have been readily believed outside 

of Germany, is true. On June 16, 19 14, Mr. 

Edgar Crammond read a paper ^ before the 

^ Printed in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society , July, 
1914. 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 13 

Royal Statistical Society in London on The 
Economic Relations of the British and German 
Empires, and stated that " the debt of the Impe- 
rial German Government and the German Fed- 
eral Governments amounted to 1,028,600,000 
pounds, or £15.16.8 per head of the population, 
while the debt of the United Kingdom amounted 
to 747,750,000 pounds, or £16.10.0 per head of 
the population." In the ensuing discussion, in 
which Lord Welby, Sir George Paish and others 
took part, it was brought out by Mr. J. Ellis 
Barker that " In Germany there was on balance 
no national debt, because the assets of the State 
were considerably greater than all the State and 
National Debts combined." These assets con- 
sist of the State railways, forests, mines, salt 
works, and so forth. While therefore the Na- 
tional Debt of the United Kingdom amounts to 
£16.10.0 (about $80.00) per head of the popula- 
tion, there is in Germany a balance on the credit 
side, the assets being larger than the liabilities. 
No figures of the actual size of this balance are 
available. A country, however, which makes 
such a favorable showing on the figures presented 
by its greatest rival can by no stretch of the im- 
agination be called bankrupt, and with this, one 
of the causes of the war frequently mentioned by 
the " man on the street " is seen to be fictitious. 
Germany did not go to war because " she had 



14 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

spent on her armaments as much as her credit 
would stand ", nor because " she would have to 
disarm unless she could retrieve her fortunes by 
an enormous indemnity to be paid to her after 
a successful war." 

As regards the statement that Germany had 
made an armed camp of the country, and that 
this state of affairs had become unbearable, it 
should be noted that the regular term of service 
of her soldiers was two years and of all young 
men of some education only one year, while 
more young men of the proper age presented 
themselves annually than could be used in the 
army. At the outbreak of the present war more 
than one million men, many of them not previ- 
ously trained in the army, volunteered their serv- 
ices, and early in September the Government was 
obliged to announce that for the present no more 
men could be enlisted. 

Compare this with the conditions in other 
European countries, where, in some instances, all 
able-bodied young men had to serve in the army 
not only one or two but three years. Remember, 
also, the tens of thousands of German reservists 
on furlough in every part of the globe, and un- 
able to return home at this time, and you will 
readily see that the picture of Germany as an 
armed camp is overdrawn. Germans, moreover, 
do not look upon the one or two years they spend 



WHAT GERMANY WANTS 15 

in the army as so much time wasted but as an 
invaluable training. They would agree with 
Dr. Levi M. Powers, who wrote in the Glouces- 
ter Times, September 12, 1914: "The German 
boy at sixteen or seventeen is a spindled-shanked 
prig. By the time the army is through with him 
he is physically the best developed man of Eu- 
rope, democratised by contact with all classes. 
Because of her army Germany is a nation phys- 
ically disciplined, and taught as no other people 
the value and meaning of law and order." 

This brings us to the point, so often over- 
looked outside of Germany, that the German 
army is a Citizen Army existing for the defence 
of the fatherland. When its constituent units 
are not in commission they are in commerce 
throughout the world basing their commercial 
actions on peaceful international relations, which 
are best expressed by the lengthy terms of their 
business contracts with citizens of other nations. 

Since Germany started on her industrial de- 
velopment she has never desired war. Her ag- 
gressiveness has been solely commercial, and 
commercial aggressiveness and military aggres- 
siveness are mutually destructive. 

Germany wants to keep the confines of her 
home-land inviolate but is not desirous of join- 
ing to them new lands of unwilling people. 

She wants to develop her colonies and invest 



16 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

her money in the building of extra-territorial 
railways which will ultimately bring her into 
relation with new markets. 

She wants to develop her home commerce and 
industry, and increase the usefulness of her agri- 
culture that she may give employment to a popu- 
lation growing at the rate of about a million a 
year. There has been no balance of emigration 
from Germany for many years. 

Over and above these desires she has the very 
natural and proper ambition to be worthy of her 
great past and to make her own contributions to 
the civilization of the world. She wants social 
justice, and she wishes to remove from her labor- 
ing classes the ills of poverty. 

Germany wants peace, for in peace only can 
she do what she has set out to do. She wants 
an honorable and a stable peace, and in so far as 
the defects of her character have been contribu- 
tory causes to misunderstandings she wishes to 
eradicate these defects. She desires the good- 
will of the world. 



CHAPTER 11 

ALSACE - LORRAINE 

Contrary to the general belief Bismarck is said 
to have regretted more than anyone the necessity 
of taking Alsace-Lorraine from France in 1871. 
It is true that these provinces had belonged to 
Germany from the time of the division of Char- 
lemagne's empire in 843 to 1648, when Ger- 
many, exhausted by the Thirty Years' War and 
torn by internal dissensions, was forced to cede 
the greater part of them to France ; Strassburg 
and the surrounding territory was seized by 
Louis XIV in time of peace in 1681. The peo- 
ple of Alsace are almost entirely of German 
stock, belonging to the Alemannian tribe, from 
the name of which the French name for Ger- 
many, Allemagne, is derived. That their native 
speech is German will appear even to the unin- 
itiated from such names as Miilhausen, Breisach, 
Strassburg, Weissenburg, Saarburg, etc. Sim- 
ilarly, the population of Lorraine is for the most 
part closely related to that of the adjoining part 
of Prussia.^ 

* H. C. G. von Jagemann, The Outlook, September 16, 1914. 



18 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

In spite of this Bismarck foresaw that France 
would not rest while she could hope some day 
to regain these provinces. The very peace, 
therefore, which concluded the Franco-Prussian 
war laid the foundation of another war in the 
future. This was a heavy price to pay, but with- 
out Alsace and Lorraine the South German 
States felt unable to join the federation of the 
German Empire. Bismarck therefore yielded 
and gave his reasons in a speech delivered May 
2, 187 1. He pointed out that there had not 
been " a generation of our fathers for three hun- 
dred years which had not been forced to draw 
the sword against France ", and that after the 
successful war of 1870 it had become our duty 
to take steps against similar attacks. The first 
step was the federation of the German States in 
the German Empire, which, owing to the then 
existing geographical and strategic frontier, was 
impossible of fulfillment without the occupation 
of Alsace-Lorraine. Bismarck says, " I cannot 
describe our condition, and especially that of 
South Germany, better than with the words of 
a thoughtful South German sovereign, the late 
King William of Wiirtemberg, who said to me, 
'The crux of the situation is Strassburg; for 
as long as Strassburg is not German, South 
Germany will be unable to give herself unre- 
servedly to German unity and a national German 



ALSACE - LORRAINE 19 

policy. As long as Strassburg is a sally-port 
for an ever-ready army of one hundred thousand 
or one hundred and fifty thousand men, Ger- 
many finds herself unable to appear on the upper 
Rhine with an equally numerous army on time. 
The French will always be here first.' I believe 
this instance taken from an actual occurrence 
says everything. I need not add one word." 

Bismarck then discusses the suggestion, which 
had been offered, of making a neutral State of 
these provinces, similar to those of Belgium and 
Switzerland, so that there would have been a 
chain of neutral states from the North Sea to 
the Swiss Alps. He points out the impractica- 
bility of this plan for several reasons but espe- 
cially because " neutrality can only be maintained 
when the inhabitants are determined to preserve 
an independent and neutral position. This sup- 
position would not be true in the immediate fu- 
ture for the neutrality of Alsace and Lorraine. 
On the contrary, it is to be expected that the 
strong French elements which will survive in 
the country for a long while will induce the 
people to unite with France in the case of an- 
other Franco-German war. The neutrality of 
Alsace-Lorraine, therefore, would have been 
merely a sham working harm for us and benefits 
for France. Nothing was left, therefore, but 
to bring both these countries with their strong 



20 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

fortresses completely under German control. It 
was our purpose to establish them as a powerful 
bulwark in Germany's defence against France, 
and to move the starting-point of a possible 
French attack several days marches farther 
back." 

Germany heartily concurred in Bismarck's 
conclusion and has ever since believed that her 
possession of these two provinces is necessary 
for her safety. For France, however, their loss 
was of great sentimental moment. The statue 
of Strassburg in the Place de la Concorde in 
Paris has been draped in mourning forty-three 
years, and France has made no secret of her 
intense desire to regain possession of these prov- 
inces. It is idle to deny that all advances to a 
better understanding between Germany and 
France have failed on that account, and this in 
spite of the sincere friendship which has drawn 
individual Frenchmen and Germans together, 
especially when they have met in foreign lands. 
Germany could not be safe without Alsace- 
Lorraine, and France would not be happy while 
she mourned their loss. 

This feeling in France, moreover, has been 
artificially fanned by a small part of the Alsa- 
tian press and most of the French press, who 
have tried to make the world believe that the 
inhabitants of these provinces wished to return 



ALSACE - LORRAINE 21 

to French rule. How ill-founded this appeal to 
French chivalry was appears from the letter 
written to the presiding officer of the Reichstag 
under date of August 5, 19 14, by the Alsatian 
representative in the German Reichstag, Dr. 
Ricklin. Dr. Ricklin is also the speaker of the 
second chamber of the Alsatian legislature. The 
letter, translated, reads: 

Dear Mr. Speaker: Please excuse my ab- 
sence from the Reichstag. I started for Berlin 
Sunday night, August 2, but was taken ill sud- 
denly and had to return to Carspach-Sonnen- 
berg. I regret my absence from the Reichstag 
very much because I should have liked to take 
the opportunity of expressing there in the name 
of my constituents my regret and deep sorrow 
at the political difficulties which have arisen. 
The idea of war between Germany and France 
is so terrible and awful for us people in Alsace- 
Lorraine that we hardly dare to think of it. We 
do not want a war between Germany and France 
at any cost, certainly not for the sake of alter- 
ing our political position. People who have 
spread a different view among the French and 
have thereby fanned the French thoughts of 
war, are traitors to our people and have drawn 
upon themselves the curses of thousands of 
Alsace-Lorraine people, fathers, mothers, and 
wives, who with bleeding hearts must see their 
sons and husbands go into the most terrible of 
all wars. 

To the last we hoped that we might be spared 



22 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the terrors of a war between Germany and 
France, and even now our people refuse to give 
up hope. If, however, God has decreed differ- 
ently, well — then the Alsace-Lorraine people 
too will do their whole duty and they will do 
it without a single reservation. 

The rules of the Reichstag do not permit a 
representative to vote by mail, but I have the 
right to inform you, Mr. Speaker, that I should 
have voted, if I had been present, in favor of 
all the bills which the present state of affairs 
demanded, including the bill granting the neces- 
sary funds for carrying on the war. 

You have the right, Mr. Speaker, to make any 
use you choose of this letter. With the expres- 
sion of great respect I am very sincerely yours, 
(signed) Dr Ricklin, member of the Reichs- 
tag. 

This letter proves the accuracy of Bismarck's 
prophecy that in time and by patience the hostil- 
ity of the people of Alsace-Lorraine would be 
overcome. " For we have," he said, " many 
means at our disposal. We Germans are accus- 
tomed to govern more benevolently, sometimes 
more awkwardly, but in the long run really more 
benevolently and humanely than the French 
statesmen. We are, moreover, able to grant 
the inhabitants a far greater degree of com- 
munal and individual freedom than the French 
institutions and traditions ever permitted." 
This has been done and the loyalty of these prov- 



ALSACE - LORRAINE 23 

inces in the present crisis is undoubtedly due to 
the amount of communal and individual free- 
dom which they have enjoyed under German 
rule, and which is far in excess of the amount 
of liberty granted Ireland under the recent Home 
Rule Bill, or enjoyed by any French province 
or municipality. 

Added, therefore, to her firm belief that Al- 
sace and Lorraine are necessary for her safety, 
Germany has felt the need of -defending her 
latest countrymen in the possession of their indi- 
vidual and communal freedom, possible for them 
only under German rule. 

Germany knew that France had not abated 
her desire to possess herself of these provinces, 
for like an honorable opponent France had never 
disguised her expectations in this matter. When 
France, therefore, mobilized her troops after 
war had been declared between Germany and 
Russia — to which latter country she was bound 
by a defensive, and possibly an offensive alliance 
— war between France and Germany became a 
certainty, especially when France declared that 
she could give no assurances of peace, but would 
do what her interests demanded. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GERMAN EMPEROR 

The German Empire is a federation of German 
States, three of which have a republican form 
of government. The Emperor is the president 
and chief executive of the federation, but his de- 
crees 'require for their vahdity the counter signa- 
ture of a responsible minister. In time of peace 
the larger States, such as Bavaria, are practically 
independent even in their military affairs. In 
war, however, the Emperor is the commander- 
in-chief of all the troops of the empire, or 
to quote the customary expression, the chief 
" Kriegsherr." This is literally translated 
" War-lord ", and in German implies that he is 
the chief lord only in war, while in peace he 
shares this honor with the executives of other 
States. 

The legislature of the empire consists of two 
houses, the Bundesrat, or Council of the Federa- 
tion, the members of which are. appointed by the 
several States, and the Reichstag, which is elected 
by universal suffrage. A declaration of war 
needs the consent of the Bundesrat, " unless an 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 25 

attack on the territory or the coast of the Fed- 
eration has taken place ", while the appropria- 
tions for carrying- on the war must be voted by 
the Reichstag. 

As regards the present war, the votes of Par- 
liament were unanimous, even the social demo- 
crats, the Poles, Danes, and representatives from 
Alsace-Lorraine voting for the necessary funds. 

It will thus be seen that the powers of the 
Emperor are circumscribed, and that his influ- 
ence depends more on the strength of his per- 
sonality than on the prerogatives of his office — 
which, by the way, carries no salary. He re- 
ceives a salary as King of Prussia from that 
State. 

If the present Emperor, nevertheless, has been 
the most influential man in Germany in recent 
years, this has been due to the fact that he has 
completely identified himself with the aspira- 
tions of Germany. What she wanted, he wanted 
— ■ peace and progress. Did he at first lead the 
people, or did they urge him on? It would be 
difficult to say. The fact is that the people early 
believed in Emperor William's wise leadership 
and that this belief soon grew to be a conviction. 
In the beginning there was much criticism, but 
this gave way to liking, liking to admiration, 
and admiration to sincere love. 

Although handicapped from infancy by a crip- 



26 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

pled left arm, William II has become an all- 
round athlete, being an especially fine horseman 
and sailor, a good tennis player, and a crack 
huntsman. The only reminder one has of his 
deformity is found in the kind of photographs 
of him offered for sale. When the Emperor is 
taken in uniform with his left arm resting on 
the hilt of his sword, the shadows can be so 
managed that the deformity of this arm is hardly 
seen. 

This accounts for the many military pictures 
of the Emperor, and is a pity, because it is apt 
to make one forget that William II has been 
after all the great prince of peace, and the patron 
of the peaceful pursuits of the Germans, There 
is no branch of art, including music and litera- 
ture, no industry, no part of agriculture or com- 
merce, no detailed plan of education, no sug- 
gestion for the betterment of existing social 
conditions, which he has not fostered or called 
into life. 

It is well known that William II has a high 
idea of the so-called divine right theory. This, 
as many assume, is " the patient's belief in his 
own sanctity ", or, to quote again, " there is a 
halo about his head." An American straw hat, 
however, of the kind the Emperor is wearing 
in the picture printed as the frontispiece of this 
book, is a poor hiding place for a divine right 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 27 

halo. If more pictures of the Corfu kind, and 
not so many of the miHtary kind, had become 
known, less extravagant stories of the " war 
lord " and his wrongly interpreted divine right 
theories would have received currency. 

The Germans have never believed these stories 
for they were contradicted by the man whom 
they saw working for their happiness and the 
progress and safety of their country. 

The Emperor is a deeply religious man, and 
his " divine rights " theory means after all noth- 
ing but what many people believe, namely that 
God has placed each man in his own special 
sphere, and has commanded him to do his best. 
It is the great gospel of personal responsibility. 

Nothing probably can give one a better under- 
standing of this side of the Emperor's character 
than his own speeches.^ On October 17, 1903, 
when Prince August Wilhelm and Prince Oskar, 
his fourth .and fifth sons, joined the church, the 
Emperor addressed to them this advice at a din- 
ner in his private residence in Potsdam : 

My dear Sons : In this moment when v^e are 
ready to call for a toast in your honor, and to 
offer you our congratulations at having joined 
the company of grown-ups in active service; 

* A larger collection of the Emperor's speeches in translation 
IS found in The German Classics, Vol. XIV, published by the 
German Publication Society, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



28 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

when you are eager for work in the Kingidom 
of God, I as your father wish to give you some 
advice on your way. 

This day is for you, in a spiritual sense, what 
swearing to the colors is to the officers and pri- 
.vates of the army. Today you have become of 
age spiritually, if I may say so, and the weap- 
ons and armor you are to use have been prepared 
for you by clever experts. I mean the men who 
have taught you. It will be your duty from now 
on to apply these teachings in all walks and con- 
ditions of life. You may receive some further 
instructions in this respect, but each man must 
himself learn how to make use of the weapons 
that have been entrusted to him, even those of 
the spirit. 

Your spiritual teacher very wisely emphasized 
one idea in the magnificent speech he addressed 
to you when he urged you to be " personalities." 
This is something which concerns, I believe, 
every Christian, for there can be no doubt that 
we are right when we say of our Lord that His 
was the most personal of all personalities that 
ever walked this earth. 

In the course of your education you have read 
and heard of many great men — and you will 
hear of more in the future — wise men, states- 
men, kings, princes, and poets. You have read 
what this one or that one bas said and have been 
inspired by his words. Certainly! for what 
German youth would not feel ennobled and en- 
raptured by the inspired songs of Korner, for 
instance? 

But these, after all, are only men's words, and 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 29 

not one of them equals a single word of our Lord. 
Be sure of this, that you may maintain it, when 
later in the whirlpool of life you hear others 
discuss religion and the person of our Lord, 
and discuss them yourselves. No man's word 
ever yet has been able to inspire with the same 
aspirations people of all races and of all nations, 
that they should all be striving to be like Him, 
and to sacrifice their lives for Him. This mira- 
cle can only be explained by the fact that the 
words He spoke were the words of the eternal 
God, and that they can create life and be alive 
after thousands of years, when the words of 
the wise men have long been forgotten. 

If I look back upon my own personal experi- 
ences, I can assure you — and you will have the 
same experience, yourselves — that the center of 
our life, especially when it is an active life of 
responsibility, hinges on the attitude we take 
toward our Lord and Savior. I have realized 
this more fully every year. 

Because we cannot ignore Him, every man is 
forced, consciously or unconsciously, to adjust 
the life he lives, the office he fills, the work he 
does, to his attitude toward his Savior, and to 
determine whether his efforts shall be agreeable 
to the Lord or not. His own conscience, unless 
it is atrophied, will keep him informed of these 
matters. 

There is only one advice I can give you for 
your life, and I give it with all my heart. Work 
and labor incessantly. This is the substance of 
the Christian life. Look to your Bible and read 
the parables of our Savior. The indolent man 



30 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

who remains inactive, satisfied to swim with the 
tide and to have other people work for him, is 
most severely punished, as is told in the parable 
of the pounds. Whatever your preferences or 
your talents may be, let each one of you endeavor 
to do his very best in his own sphere and to 
become a personality, to grow in the perform- 
ance of his duties, to be active, and to follow the 
example of our Savior. 

Above everything-, see to it that all things you 
do give pleasure, if this is possible, to your fel- 
low-men — for there is nothing more beautiful 
than to take pleasure jointly with others — and 
if this is impossible may your work be at least 
useful as the active and helpful life of our Lord 
always was. If you do this you will have done 
what we expected of you, and will be honest 
German men and useful princes of my house, 
and you will take part in the work that has been 
allotted to all of us. May you accomplish this 
and be blessed, and may God and our Savior 
help you ! This is our wish today." 

Another speech of the Emperor has a special 
significance because he used the expression the 
" German Empire Oak." This figure of speech 
appealed to the people, who added it to the rich 
storehouse of imagery of the German language. 

The address was delivered on February 3, 
1899, at a dinner which the president of the 
province of Brandenburg had arranged for the 
members of the provincial diet. Brandenburg 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 31 

was the earliest of the provinces of the present 
Kingdom of Prussia entrusted to the care of the 
Hohenzollerns. The Emperor seems to have an 
especially warm place in his heart for the sons 
of Brandenburg: 

My dear Mr. President and Men of Branden- 
burg : — ■ 

The address which we have just heard gave 
a most patriotic survey, poetically embellished, 
of the deeds of the Hohenzollerns and the his- 
tory of our people. I believe I am expressing 
your own feelings when I say that two factors 
made it possible for my ancestors to solve their 
problems as they did. One, and the chief factor, 
was that they of all the princes at a time when 
such thoughts and feelings were not yet uni- 
versal, realized their personal responsibility 
toward God, and acted accordingly, and the 
other, that they had the support of the people 
of Brandenburg. 

Put yourselves back for a moment to the time 
when Lord Frederick I was appointed Elector 
here, and exchanged his splendid home in Fran- 
conia for the March of Brandenburg. According 
to the historians, the conditions here at that 
time were such that we today can barely con- 
ceive of them. We can therefore understand 
Lord Frederick's action only if we assume that 
he felt it his duty to accept the country which 
the emperor's favor had bestowed on him. He 
was eager to introduce in Brandenburg system 
and order, not only because he wished to please 



32 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the emperor, and himself, but because he be- 
lieved Heaven had assigned to him this task. 
Similar motives we can trace with all my ances- 
tors. Their big wars with other countries, and 
their institutions and laws at home were ever 
inspired by the one feeling of responsibility to 
the people who had been given into their keep- 
ing, and the country which had been entrusted 
to them. 

The president of the province has kindly re- 
ferred to our trip to Palestine and what I did 
there. I am free to say that I have had many 
and varied experiences of an elevating nature in 
that country, partly religious, partly historical, 
and partly, also, connected with modern life. My 
most inspiring experience, however, next to the 
service in our own church, was to stand on the 
Mount of Olives and see the spot at its base 
where the greatest struggle of the world was 
fought — by the One Man — for the redemp- 
tion of mankind. This realization induced me 
to renew on that day my oath of allegiance, as 
it were, to God on high. I swore to do my very 
best to knit my people together and to destroy 
whatever could disintegrate them. 

During my stay in that foreign country where 
we Germans miss the woods and the beautiful 
sheets of water which we love, I often thought 
of the lakes of Brandenburg and their clear, 
somber depths and of our forests of oaks and 
pines, and then I said to myself that after all 
we are far happier here than in foreign lands, 
although the other people of Europe often pity 
us. 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 33 

Speaking of trees, and our care and love of 
them, I am reminded of an incident which is 
of interest to us who have begun to assist the 
growth of the German Empire. It happened 
after the great and inspiring events of 1870-71. 
The troops had returned, the exultation had 
abated, people had resumed their former labors, 
and the work of solidifying and developing the 
new fatherland was beginning. The three pal- 
adins of the grand old Emperor, the great gen- 
eral, the mighty chancellor, and the faithful 
minister of war, had sat down to a meal, for 
the first time alone. When they had drunk their 
first glass to the sovereign and the Empire, the 
chancellor turned to his companions and said : 
" Now we have obtained everything for the real- 
ization of which we have been fighting, strug- 
gling, and suffering. We have reached the high- 
est goal of which we ever dared to dream. After 
our experiences what more can there be to in- 
terest and to inspire us?" There was a brief 
pause, and then the old director of battles said, 
" To see the tree grow ! " And the room was 
very still. 

Yes, gentlemen, the tree which we must watch 
and care for is the German Empire Oak. It is 
bound to grow, because it has the protection of 
the men of Brandenburg. Here are its roots. 
It has weathered many a storm, and has often 
almost died, but its roots and shoots, firmly 
planted in Brandenburg soil, will keep, God 
grant, in all eternity ! 

The wish to bring about peace among all the 
people is magnificent, but one big mistake is 



34 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

generally made in all such calculations. As long 
as unregenerated sin rules among men, there 
will be war and hatred, envy and discord, and 
one man will try to get the better of another. 
The law of men, is also the law of nations. Let 
us Germans, therefore, hold together like a solid 
rock! And may every wave which threatens 
peace, far away or at home in Europe, dash in 
vain against this immovable rock — the German 
people ! 

Finally, one other speech may be quoted here, 
because it expresses the conviction of the best 
minds of Germany, namely that Germany can 
only thrive if her sons are morally strong and 
proof against the temptations of pride and envy. 
This speech was delivered on April 24, 1901, 
to the students of the University of Bonn, when 
the Emperor's oldest son, the Crown Prince 
Friedrich Wilhelm, entered the university: 

My Dear Young Fellow-Students : I need not 
tell you how my heart delights at being once 
more in my beloved Bonn and in a company of 
students. My mind reverts to the glorious pic- 
ture of glistening sunshine and happiness which 
filled my stay here years ago. Joy of life, joy 
in the people, young and old, and above all joy 
in the new German Empire, growing stronger 
every day! 

It is therefore naturally my dearest wish that 
my beloved son whom I am now placing among 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 35 

you, shall be vouchsafed as happy student days 
as I once had. And how could he possibly not 
have them? Is not Bonn, this lovely town, ac- 
customed to the activities of jolly youths, and 
by nature as if created for this purpose! 

But more ! Bonn is built on the Rhine ! 'Tis 
here our vines grow, and here our traditions are 
rich, for here every castle and every town is elo- 
quent of our past. Let Father Rhine exert his 
charm also on the Crown Prince as on all of 
you! And when the cup passes from hand to 
hand and the songs are gay, let your souls de- 
light in the glorious moments, and dip deep into 
them, as becomes German fellows in the prime 
of life. But let the spring whence you draw 
your pleasure be as pure and clear as the golden 
juice of the grapes, and as deep and lasting as 
Father Rhine! Let us look about us in the 
blessed Rhinish lands, where our past rises in 
visible form! Rejoice, my friends, that you are 
German youths, when you pass from Aachen to 
Mainz, that is from Charles the Great to Ger- 
many's era of splendor under Barbarossa! 

Why did this splendor not last? Why did 
the German Empire decay? Because the old 
Empire was not built on a strictly national basis. 
The cosmopolitan idea of the old Roman Empire 
of German nationality did not permit a devel- 
opment along German national lines. A nation 
is only possible when a demarkation line exists 
between it and foreign people, when its own men 
and women have personalities to correspond to 
their racial peculiarities. Barbarossa's glory 
had to wane, and the old Empire had to crumble 



36 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

because its cosmopolitism prevented the process 
of a national crystallization of the whole. Here 
and there a smaller district was firmly knit into 
a principality and formed the nucleus of a future 
State. Unfortunately this necessitated a conflict 
between such a State and its leader on the one 
hand, and the Emperor and the Empire serving 
the cosmopolitan idea on the other. Thus the 
Empire, declining in vigor, lost also its internal 
peace. It is a pity that we m^ust write also over 
this phase in the development of our German 
people the weighty words of Tacitus, who knew 
Germany so well. Propter invidiam (Because of 
envy) ! The princes were jealous of the Em- 
peror's power, just as they had been jealous of 
Arminius, in spite of his victory. The nobility 
was jealous of the growing wealth of the cities, 
and the peasants envied the nobles. What fatal 
consequences and bitter harm has not come to 
our dear and beautiful Germany propter invid- 
iam! The banks of the Rhine have a story to 
tell of this. Well, what once could not be done, 
God finally granted it to one man to achieve! 

Aachen and Mainz are historical memories. 
But in German breasts there had survived the 
longing to be united into one nation, and Em- 
peror William the Great brought it about, with 
the assistance of his faithful servants. Let us 
then turn our eyes to Koblenz, to the German 
Square, and to Riidesheim, to the Niederwald, 
where great monuments teach you that now you 
are Germans in German lands and citizens of a 
well-defined German nation. You will have to 
do your share of the work for its safety and 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 37 

development, and you are here to prepare your- 
selves for this work. The Empire stands before 
you; it is thriving gloriously. Let joy and grat- 
itude fill your hearts; and may you glow with 
the firm and manly resolve to work for Germany 
as Germans and to lift her and strengthen her! 
The future is waiting for you. It will test your 
strength. Do not waste it in cosmopolitan 
dreams, or in one-sided party service, but exert 
it to make stable the national idea and to foster 
the noblest thoughts. 

The spiritual heroes whom God's grace per- 
mitted the German race to produce, from Boni- 
face and Walther von der Vogelweide to Goethe 
and Schiller are great. They have given light 
and have been a blessing to all mankind. Their 
work was universal, but they were Germans in 
the strictest sense, they were well-defined per- 
sonalities, and in short, men! Men we need 
today more than ever. May you too strive to 
be men! 

How is this possible? Who can show you the 
way? There is only one whose name we all 
bear, who has borne our sins and blotted them 
out, who has shown us by His life and work 
how we shall live and work, our Lord and Sa- 
vior. May He sow into your hearts moral seri- 
ousness, that your motives may be pure and 
your aims high. Love of father and mother, of 
home and fatherland, depends on love of Him. 
If you have this you will be proof against all 
temptations, especially against pride and envy, 
and will be able to sing and say, " We Germans 
fear God and naught else in the world." If 



38 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

this is the case, we shall stand firm in this world, 
and be able to spread culture. When I shall see 
such a generation gather and grow up about my 
son I shall be well satisfied to close my eyes when 
the time comes, for then the rallying cry will 
be, " Germany, Germany, above everything ! " 

With confident heart I give you the toast, 
" Long live the University of Bonn! " 

These few speeches do not, of course, develop 
a complete picture of the many-sided character 
of Emperor William. They may, however, ex- 
plain why the Germans love him, and why they 
are sure that no selfish motives influence his 
actions. 

There has been not a little talk of a " military 
clique," which is said to surround the Emperor 
and through him to dictate the policy of the 
Empire. He probably has his special friends, 
but he is in constant touch with representative 
men from all walks of life, and no complaint 
has been heard in Germany during his reign that 
it was difficult to reach his ear. The fact is that 
the communal and individual life of Germany 
is so thoroughly democratic and that the men 
at the heads of the various departments are 
drawn from so wide a range of social antece- 
dents that it is no longer possible to speak of 
a " clique " as in control of the government. 

One other erroneous notion may finally be 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 39 

commented upon in passing. Many people have 
believed that the Emperor could institute pro- 
ceedings of lese majeste. He cannot do any- 
thing of the kind. There are several paragraphs 
of the legal code dealing with slander and insults 
against the Crown, their prosecution, however, 
is the same as that of other crimes and misde- 
meanors, and is in the hands of the district 
attorneys. 

From whatever side the problem is attacked, 
one always returns to the same conclusion that 
Emperor William is well spoken of at home, not 
because he is, or for that matter could be, auto- 
cratic, but because his aims, throughout his 
reign, have been the aims of the healthily pul- 
sating life of Germany: Peace and Progress! 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PAST 

The earliest record of the German people is 
contained in the writings of Tacitus, a Roman 
historian of the first century of. our era, who 
shows that both their virtues and their faults 
were apparent even then. Their morality, he 
said, accomplished more than elsewhere the best 
of laws, while their love of individual freedom 
made them impatient of restrictions, prevented 
the formation of strong States, and rendered 
them an easy prey of foreign invaders. What- 
ever the Germans have since achieved has been 
the result of tlieir individually high morality and 
whatever ills they have suffered has been largely 
due to their own petty jealousies. 

Unlike the other great nations of Europe the 
Germans discovered the value of a well con- 
ceived national idea late. It was Bismarck who 
preached it to them, and who taught them that 
" no strong national existence is possible with- 
out a sufficiently broad, local basis." This local 
basis was supplied in 187 1 by the federation of 
the German States under the presidency of the 



THE PAST 41 

King of Prussia who bears the name of German 
Emperor. 

The creation of the Empire, however, would 
have been insufficient and would not have made 
a world power of Germany, if it had not been 
supplemented by the popular will to he worthy 
of a great past and the hope of a great future. 

If one wishes to value the aspirations of Ger- 
many today, one must know how this past ap- 
pears to her people, how they expect to prove 
themselves worthy of it, and what thoughts they 
have of the future. 

The history of all people down to the French 
Revolution is the history of men rather than of 
popular forces; not that the will of the people 
had not made itself felt in earlier times, but that 
it is much easier to understand the concrete 
achievements of individuals than the abstract 
workings of national ideas. 

From Charlemagne, who proudly placed the 
Emperor's crown on his own head in Rome on 
Christmas eve of the year 800, down to the time 
of Emperor Barbarossa whose name is even 
today known and loved in every German house, 
the Empire grew in strength and in prosperity. 
" There was no prince in this world comparable 
to the German Emperors, and German knights 
and German women were the flowers of creation. 
The thrift of the burghers brought wealth to 



42 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the cities, and the honesty and loyalty of the 
peasants became proverbial." 

Such are the pictures unrolled in school to 
the children, such the stories told in countless 
books written for and eagerly read by the 
masses. Everywhere the cardinal virtues of 
chastity, loyalty, honesty, and thrift are glori- 
fied, and everywhere the convictions of the read- 
ers are strengthened that these are the virtues 
which distinguished their ancestors. Nor are 
the pictures wholly invented. In a world which 
was only slowly transforming itself from a bar- 
baric to a civilized state, the high personal mo- 
rality of the Germans stood out from the gloom 
of vicious habits like stars on a darkened sky. 

Frederic Redbeard, that is Barbarossa, ruled 
from 1 1 52-1 190. He conquered Italy in six 
campaigns, and the stories of warmth and beauty 
and sunshine south of the Alps which his sol- 
diers brought back to Germany, surrounded the 
Emperor with a halo of heavenly splendor. A 
touch of the mysterious was added when the 
news reached home that he had suddenly died 
in Asia Minor on a crusade against the Turks. 

His immediate successors were less strong, 
but then came the reign of Emperor Frederick II, 
1215-1250, the most splendid of all. In spite 
of wars and minor revolutions the spiritual life 
of Germany was wakening to the sunshine of a 



THE PAST 43 

new day in the world's history. The Nibelungen- 
Hed was composed, and Hartmann von der Aue, 
Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von 
Strassburg inspired the Germans with their 
epics, while Walther von der Vogelweide 
touched their hearts with his poems. 

Soon after Frederick's death dissensions 
racked the Empire, which was quickly dis- 
membered. In the hearts and minds of the 
people, however, the great Emperors continued 
to live. Their memories were blended into one, 
and the fable grew up of Emperor Barbarossa 
sleeping in Kyffhauser Mountain in Saxony, 
whence he would issue some day, when the Em- 
pire should rise again in splendor, and a new 
era begin for the German people. 

Early in the nineteenth century Riickert gave 
poetic form to these hopes of the Germans. The 
poem translated ^ reads : 

t The ancient Barbarossa, 

Friedrich, the Kaiser great. 
Within the castle-cavern 
Sits in enchanted state. 

He did not die; but ever 

Waits in the chamber deep, 
Where hidden under the castle 

He sat himself to sleep. 

^ German Classics, Vol. V. p. 486. German Publication Society, 
597 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



44 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

The splendor of the Empire 

He took with him away, 
And back to earth will bring it 

When dawns the promised day. 

The chair is ivory pm'est 

Whereof he makes his bed; 
The table is of marble 

Whereon he props his head. 

His beard, not flax, but burning 

With fierce and fiery glow. 
Right through the marble table 

Beneath his chair does grow. 

He nods in dreams and winketh 

With dull, half-open eyes, 
And once a page he beckons — 

A page that standeth by. 

He bids the boy in slumber: 

" O dwarf, go up this hour, 
And see if still the ravens 

Are flying round the tower; 

And if the ancient ravens 

Still wheel above us here, 
Then must I sleep enchanted 

For many a hundred year." 

Americans have wondered at times why the 
Germans founded an Empire in 1871 when they 
might have had a republic. Oppressed through 
centuries, torn by dissension, by jealousy at 
home and by grudging neighbors, the Germans 
had centered all their expectations on the re- 



THE PAST 45 

vival of their former splendor; and this re- 
vival had always been connected in their minds 
with the reappearance of their Emperor. For 
the Germans, 1871 was the culmination of count- 
less hopes. Without them they would have been 
unable to put aside everything that through 
generations had kept them separated, and made 
them the play-ball of fate, and the laughing-stock 
of England and of France. 

While the death of Emperor Frederick 
marked the end of the period of greatest out- 
ward splendor for Germany, the mental and 
commercial life of the people continued to de- 
velop marvelously. The German Hansa, an alli- 
ance of cities which were great centers of 
commerce, grew to proportions which even to- 
day would be called enormous. Belgium and 
Holland were then parts of the Empire, and 
their ports, together with those of Bremen, Ham- 
burg, Liibeck, and Danzig, did practically all the 
business of the world. It has been claimed that 
in season ships cleared the great ports at the rate 
of a ship a minute. 

Minds were active everywhere, art flourished, 
universities were founded, inventions were made, 
and prejudices were being discarded — when 
the greatest misfortune overtook the Germans 
that can befall a people. They were rent in twain 
by religious dissension, fiercer than had been 



46 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

known in the world before. Father and son 
fought each other, brother killed brother, and 
whoever had the upper hand in a district tried 
to make converts or kill the heretics. And there 
was no one strong enough to stop the bloodshed 
and remind Catholics and Protestants alike that 
they were Germans. 

The result was the Thirty Years' War, 1608- 
1648, which devastated the country and numbed 
the people, decimated their numbers, and made 
all memories of former splendor almost incred- 
ible myths. 

In the generations which followed the other 
great nations of Europe forged ahead. The 
former German Empire, while still holding to- 
gether nominally, was a loosely knit association 
of States. The more prosperous southern and 
western States despised their poverty-stricken 
brethren in the north, and both were used by 
France or England to fight their battles for 
them. The proud Louis XIV brought much 
misery to the remnants of France's earlier rival. 
Some provinces he took after successful wars, 
others he stole in times of peace, outright. No 
German prince dared to gainsay him. 

At last, however, in the poor soil of the north 
a new people grew up in the strict school of dis- 
cipline and justice. Their masters were the 
princes of Hohenzollern who had exchanged 



THE PAST 47 

their Prankish homes for the March of Bran- 
denburg. Ridiculed at first, the Great Elector, 
in the seventeenth century, won final recognition 
by his victories over the invading French and 
Swedish troops. His ships sailed the oceans, 
and even appeared on the west coast of Africa. 
He strengthened his country and joined to it the 
province of Prussia, where his son Frederick 
crowned himself king on January i8, 1701, and 
which gave its name to the new kingdom. 

From then on the history of Prussia is well 
known. Frederick II, the Great, established or- 
der and a firm government in his kingdom after 
he had defended it against the world at incred- 
ible odds. His reputation spread through Eu- 
rope and across the sea, and for the first time 
for generations, a German in foreign lands could 
feel proud again at being a German. 

Brought up in the hard school of want and 
obedience, the Prussian character, while efficient, 
appeared to the other people austere and want- 
ing in the graces of human intercourse. But it 
was this very character, reliable and Indomitable, 
which at last brought about the new German 
Empire. First, however, it had to be chastened 
and suffer much in the Napoleonic wars. It had 
to learn the lesson that even the achievements 
of a Frederick the Great count for naught in 
the next generation, if this generation does noth- 



48 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

ing to deserve their blessing. There is no stand- 
still in nature. Either we progress or we must 
fall behind. 

Today Germany has learned her lesson well. 
She knows that she cannot rest on the successes 
of 1870 and '71. If she would bring about the 
splendor of earlier years she must be active. 
And she has been active, for she knows that the 
love of the past is valuable only when it contains 
a promise of the future. 



CHAPTER V 

THE NEW EMPIRE 

Forty - three years of peace must be marked 
off to the credit of the new German Empire. 

This is almost the half-century which Moltke 
prophesied it would take before the Germans 
could feel secure in their new possession. Fifty 
years, he said, they must stand fully armed to 
defend themselves against a world which hates 
new-comers. After that they may relax their 
vigilance. 

These forty-three years have seen a marvelous 
development. 

To begin, the increase of the population has 
been very rapid, amounting today to more than 
800,000 annually. The Germans grow so rap- 
idly that they " gain in three years as many peo- 
ple as there are Swiss people in the world, in 
six years as many as inhabit Holland and Swe- 
den, and in a generation as many as all the Span- 
iards and Portuguese combined." ^ 

1 The quotations in this chapter, unless otherwise stated, are 
from Paul Rohrbach, Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt, 191 2. 



50 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

A normally rapid increase in population 
among a civilized people is an indication of its 
high state of morality; while more than once 
in history the decline of a nation has been pre- 
ceded by a constantly falling birth rate. The 
love of married life and of many children is the 
best measure of a people's inner and outer state 
of health. 

" The blessing of many children," Paul Rohr- 
bach says, " are still with us, in spite of all dif- 
ficulties, as an after effect of those centuries 
which ,have kept their meaning alive in our mor- 
als and religion, and as the result of nature's 
own sense of life trying to maintain itself against 
the cold doctrine of utility. To the extent to 
which nature and the strong mating sense of 
the past grow dull, we mxust take active steps 
toward recognizing that the bearing of children 
is a public achievement, unless we are willing as 
a nation to retrograde. Above everything, we 
shall have to make it easier for the woman to 
be a mother. This is the first and the most dif- 
ficult problem of the woman question." 

The greatest achievements of the new Empire 
are connected with steps taken to make the 
problems of life easier for those people who, with 
small returns, contribute their all to the pros- 
perity of the State. These are the workingmen, 
and as the result of much wise legislation their 



THE NEW EMPIRE 51 

lot in Germany is better today than anywhere 
else in the world. The credit of having taken 
the initiative in this whole movement belongs to 
Emperor William I. At his request Bismarck 
introduced the first bills in the Reichstag and 
laid down the general principles which have 
guided all subsequent laws. Replying to an 
opponent's advice to go slow, because the State 
was responsible for everything it did, Bismarck 
said: 

Gentlemen : I feel that the State may become 
responsible also for the things it does not do. 
No State can safely practice the laisses faire, 
laissez aller theory, and all the unadulterated 
political theories of Manchester, such as " let 
each one do what he chooses, and fare as he 
will ", or " who is not strong enough to stand, 
let him fall ", or " he who has will receive more, 
and he who has not, from him let us take.'' 

At present our poor-laws keep the injured 
laboring man from starvation. According to 
law nobody need starve. Whether in reality 
this never happens I do not know. But this is 
not enough, if the man is to look contentedly 
into the future and to his own old age. The 
present bill intends to keep the sense of human 
dignity alive, which even the poorest German 
should enjoy if I have my way. He should feel 
that he is no mere almstaker, when he is sick 
or old, but that he possesses a fund which is his 
very own. No one shall have the right to dis- 



52 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

pose of it, or to take it from him, however poor 
he may be. This fund will open for him many 
a door and secure for him better treatment. 

Alms constitute the first step of Christian 
charity, such as must exist to a great extent in 
countries like France, where they have no poor- 
laws, and where every poor man has the right 
to starve to death. This is the first Christian 
duty, and the second is the assistance com- 
manded by law and given by individual com- 
munities. A State, however, it seems to me, 
which is composed very largely of Christians, 
should let itself be permeated with the principles 
which it confesses, and especially with those 
which have to do with helping our neighbors, 
and show sympathy for the lot which is threat- 
ening the old and the sick. 



These words were spoken April 2, 1881, and 
may be said to have been the text on which the 
whole fabric of German welfare legislation has 
been built. As a result the conditions of the 
German laboring men are better than they are 
anywhere in the world — this at least is the 
belief of the Germans. Emigration consequently 
has fallen off to a point where it is practically 
non-existing, or to quote the Journal of the 
Royal Statistical Society: " During the last ten 
years there was on balance no emigration from 
Germany. On the contrary, there was immigra- 
tion; whereas from England the emigration has 



THE NEW EMPIRE 53 

lately been on an average between 200,000 and 
300,000 (annually)."^ 

The full importance of these figures is seen 
when one realizes that also Germany used to 
have an emigration of about 200,000 annually 
before she was well started on her social wel- 
fare legislation. Today she has an annual excess 
of immigration over emigration of more than 
half a million souls annually. Germany has 
become a good place in which to live, and in 
which " to look contentedly into the future and 
to one's old age,'' even if one is simply a poor 
man. 

This should never be forgotten in a discussion 
of the causes of the present war. The laboring 
men, and that means the overwhelming majority 
of all the people, were living under conditions 
which they considered better than those in other 
countries, and which the constantly broadening 
labor laws promised to improve as time went 
on, provided, always, that the growth of German 
industry and commerce continued to keep step 
with the increase of the population by birth and 
immigration. 

How phenomenal this growth of the German 
industry has been in recent years appears from 
the comparative table in the Journal just quoted. 

^ J. Ellis Barker, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Lon- 
don, July, 1914, p. 813. 



54 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

It grew 204 per cent, from 1888 to 191 2, while 
the British growth was only 100.7 P^^ cent, in 
the same time. 

The average German, however, was satisfied 
to know that the German industry was growing 
at a rate which gave steady employment not only 
to all those willing to work in any one year but 
found new employment every year for the addi- 
tional 800,000, which is the average annual in- 
crease of population; yes, even for more because 
Germany has an excess immigration of several 
hundred thousand. 

The question, therefore, arose " Is the growth 
of our industry assured for all times, or are there 
forces at work in the world which would retard 
or destroy it ? " 

People have said " Why can the Germans not 
be satisfied with the commerce they enjoy at 
present? Why must they poke their noses into 
every corner of the world, when they know that 
this must arouse English animosity?" 

The answer is very simple. Because they have 
to feed each year at least one million mouths 
more than they had to feed the previous year, 
and because their morality forbids them to adopt 
the small family or even the " no children " sys- 
tem of other nations. 

J^ standstill, therefore, for Germany under 
present conditions was out of the question. She 



THE NEW EMPIRE 55 

had to find ever new markets of the world, or 
starve. 

This, however, brought her into dangerous 
competition with the country that loves to call 
herself the " Mistress of the Sea," and which, 
having had a start of centuries, regarded the 
giant strides of the Germans with distrust. 

In Germany the feeling grew that England 
wished to destroy the world-markets of her rival, 
and history seemed to bear this out, for had 
England not destroyed or attached to herself 
in turn the great world commerce of Spain, 
Portugal, France, Holland, and the United 
States? The merchant marines of all these 
nations had fallen a prey to England, because 
in the hour of need they had not been defended 
by a sufficiently large navy. It was, therefore, 
the duty of Germany to build a navy, not for 
the sake of aggression, but to defend her world 
commerce if England should find an opportune 
moment of attack. This was Germany's view 
of the case. 

England, however, feared lest the German 
navy grow too strong to be merely defensive. 
She knew that Germany needed new markets 
and opportunities every year, and suspected that 
some day her rival, unable to create new mar- 
kets, would try to rob her by force of her own. 

In a perfectly natural way, therefore, feelings 



56 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

of mistrust began to separate the English from 
the Germans, who by all the laws of nature 
should stand side by side in this world in a joint 
effort to advance the sum total of civilization. 

That the great clash had to come in 19 14 is 
the more regrettable since friends of peace had 
detected the approach to a better understanding 
between the Germans and the English. It is 
now well known that the German Chancellor had 
launched on a distinctly friendly English policy 
some years ago. No one, however, probably 
has stated the case so well as Lord Welby, who 
is quoted in the July number of the Journal of 
the Royal Statistical Society (1914, pp. 807, 
808) as follows : 

I and my generation, which of course goes 
back to a very distant period, are astounded, 
and rightly astounded, at the progress Germany 
has made in the last sixty or seventy years. 
The Germany we remember of the fifties was 
a cluster of insignificant States under insignifi- 
cant princelings, headed by the so-called hege- 
mony of Prussia and Austria, intriguing against 
each other, with the result that Germany was 
really of no account in the world either as a 
power, or as a nation. I ask you to compare 
this with the picture Mr. Crammond's paper 
("Economic Relations of the British and Ger- 
man Empires ") has shown you, and compare 
it with the figures and with the marvelous prog- 



THE NEW EMPIRE 57 

ress which is marked in almost every branch of 
German industry. You must feel that Bismarck 
added a great and new industrial force to the 
productive power of the world. As far as I am 
concerned, I hail with pleasure the development 
of Germany, and I think most of my hearers 
will agree with me in what, if I remember 
rightly, Mr. Balfour laid down with very great 
force, that it is a great mistake ever to think 
that the development of one country is acquired 
at the expense of another. The real fact of the 
matter is that the development of one country 
really adds a fresh source of supply to the indus- 
tries of other countries. And therefore as far 
as those relations (with Germany) are con- 
cerned, I think you must all feel that the devel- 
opment of Germany is of great benefit to the 
world. 

Those were generous and true words, unfor- 
tunately much at variance with expressions 
which have since fallen from the lips of the King 
and of several of the British ministers. The 
fact is, the two countries have never quite under- 
stood each other. But since Lord Welby's words 
are true, and will live, and the others will eva- 
nesce as passion dies, the sooner both England 
and Germany realize that neither country will 
gain by destroying the prosperity of the other 
the better it will be for both. 

One hopeful sign that this realization may 
dawn upon the people soon is found in the mag- 



58 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

nificent spirit of manly chivalry which has not 
deserted all the leaders in the two countries. 
One of the noblest documents of this war is the 
Proclamation issued August 5, 19 14, by the 
British Acting Governor of the Gold Coast: 

There are amongst us now certain German 
subjects under the greatest misfortune that can 
fall upon the people of a martial race — that 
they cannot be in their own country when war 
has descended upon it. Let me call to your 
minds that some of them have lived many years 
on the Gold Coast, engaged to the benefit of its 
population in missionary, medical, and mercan- 
tile work; that some of them are our personal 
friends ; and that from all we have received acts 
of kindness and assistance. They are entitled 
to more than our charity, they are entitled to our 
chivalry. 

Let, therefore, the chiefs make it known that 
they will lay a very heavy hand on any of their 
people who seek occasion to insult or molest 
those who have for many years been amongst 
us as our good friends and guests. For some 
years the Gold Coast has been traveling along 
the easy paths of peace and prosperity. It is 
for its people to show now that they possess 
courage and obedience, the virtues most needed 
when the way is difficult, for war means, even 
to the victor, not victory only but hardship, con- 
fusion, and scarcity. Let us support the chances 
of war calmly, patiently, and resolutely in the 
English fashion. Let there be no vain boasting 



THE NEW EMPIRE 59 

and no cowardly despair. If you can show stern 
qualities in time of trial your name will be far 
stronger than years of prosperity could ever 
have made it. 

This language is understood by people of all 
lands. If there were more Germans and English- 
men to speak it their countries would soon out- 
grow their suspicions, and England rest assured 
that no danger is lurking for her in Germany's 
prosperity. 



CHAPTER VI 

RUSSIA, THE SLAVS, AND GERMANY 

The Russians are Slavs, but it is a great mistake 
to assume that everybody who has suffered at 
the hands of autocratic Russia blames the Slavs 
for his experiences. 

Most Germans of the northeastern provinces, 
whether or not they know it, have Slav blood in 
their veins. It has even been claimed that Prus- 
sia succeeded in building up a strong State of its 
own, and later of founding the new Empire, 
because she was not obliged to deal with the cen- 
trifugal forces of pure-blooded Germans. 

Many Slavs in Western Russia, Poland, and 
the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungaria, are as 
highly civilized as any people in the world. 
They are even apt to give one the impression of 
a higher civilization, because their culture is 
personal rather than national. In the Dual Mon- 
archy, for instance, any distinctly Slavic national 
pursuit of culture would drive the Slavs away 
from the centers of greater culture to the less 
advanced strongholds of Slavic thought. 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 61 

In Russia, on the other hand, the gulf which 
separates the spiritual horizon of the upper 
classes from that of the masses is so incalculably 
great that it is impossible to speak of a national 
state of Russian culture. No one who has not 
seen the peasants in the interior of the country 
has any idea of the kind of human material of 
which the hundred million Russians largely con- 
sist today. You could not call them poor, just 
as you would never think of applying this term 
to any of your household pets. They do their 
work, they get their food, and then they sleep, 
with an occasional fight by way of diversion. 

Some writers have favorably commented on 
the treatment which the peasants receive from 
the great lords, in whose demeanor there is not 
the least arrogance. You might as well expect 
arrogance in the way a man addresses his horse. 
Wherever the remotest chance of claiming equal- 
ity is absent on the one part the narrow defense 
of arrogance on the other part is obviously not 
called for. 

These peasants cling to their native land with 
a pertinacity which hints of the fine qualities 
dormant within them. They are all of one re- 
ligion, the Greek Orthodox — the exceptions are 
very few — and the Czar, their " little father," 
as they call him, is for them God's representative 
on earth. They are either absolutely faithful, 



62 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

like well trained dogs, or they turn upon their 
masters with a ferocity quite unknown in the 
West. 

Their ideas of right and wrong are very posi- 
tive and in order to arouse the peasants to war- 
fare, they must be told the most outrageous tales 
about their enemies. Once aroused they try to 
wreak vengeance on the enemy commensurable 
with the distorted picture of them which their 
masters have drawn. 

The result is, of course, the barbarous warfare 
which has often characterized the Russian cam- 
paigns. An army which consists largely of Rus- 
sian peasants cannot be held in check by the best 
and most humane of officers. The so-called 
Cossacks are mounted troops from the interior 
and of very much the same character. 

The fecundity of the Russian peasant class is 
enormous, but since the death rate is also very 
large, owing to ignorance and the lack of sani- 
tation, the rate of increase in the Russian popu- 
lation is only very little more than that of Ger- 
many. 

If ignorance in its literal sense, that is absence 
of all knowledge, is characteristic of large num- 
bers of the lower classes, dishonesty, that is graft 
in its most offensive kind, is characteristic of 
many of the higher officials. When the writer 
was in Russia a few years ago his baggage was 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 63 

stolen as he was on the point of crossing into 
Persia. In his endeavor to trace it, he was held 
up for a bribe by one person after another. His 
last interview was with the chief of police, who 
doubled the original demand of five rubles, and 
when they were not paid, declared his inability 
to do anything. The writer having heard of the 
arrival of the governor in Erivan, refused the 
chief's demands, and called on the governor, 
whose name was known to him as that of one 
of the noblest families of Russia. The governor 
was very gracious, listened attentively, and with 
growing annoyance, to the complaint. At last 
he jumped up, very angry. " Oh, these petty 
thieves," he exclaimed over and over again as he 
paced the floor, "Oh, these petty thieves — " 
Suddenly he stopped before his visitor, looked 
him square in the eye, slapped him cordially on 
the shoulder, as if a thought had just come to 
him, and cried, " I'll tell you what ! Give me 
twenty-five rubles, and I will see that you get 
your baggage tomorrow!" He was as good as 
his word. 

Graft and lying have ever gone hand in hand, 
and those who know the country believe that 
even the Czar has no idea of what is really going 
on in the Empire. At the outbreak of the present 
war the Czar and his ministers gave assurances 
" on their honor " which were at variance with 



64 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the best obtainable information concerning the 
Russian mobilization. It is quite possible that 
they believed what they said, but that they did not 
know. Later in the fall of this year, it is said, 
the Czar had intended to test the rapidity of the 
mobilization of his troops in a grand manoeuver. 
On a certain day he was to issue his orders of 
mobilization and when it was complete the gen- 
erals were to report to him. 

Russian generals would not be Russian, as 
travelers use this term, if they had not taken 
precautionary measures to be well within the 
time limit expected of them. It would therefore 
be not at all surprising if they had begun their 
mobilization secretly and weeks in advance of 
time. 

To realize why Russian mobilization must be 
slow, one has only to glance at the records of 
the Russian railway rolling stock.^ The whole 
empire, in Europe as well as in Asia, owns less 
than 20,000 passenger coaches, 1,000 of which 
are parlor cars! The total seating capacity of 
these coaches is less than 700,000, while the 
German seating capacity is four times as great, 
and if one compares the distances in Germany 
with those in Russia, not four times but more 
nearly forty times as great! Russia has less 

^ Statistics published in North German Gazette, August 23, 1914, 
Second edition, page 2. 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 65 

than 400,000 freight cars, while Germany has 
almost 600,000 freight cars. 

This is the reason why Russia needs time to 
concentrate her millions of soldiers, and if she 
is beaten anywhere finds it dijEficult to escape as 
complete a defeat as that of Tannenberg in East 
Russia, where four and one half Russian army 
corps were so completely destroyed that no 
mention of them has occurred in subsequent des- 
patches, and over 90,000 unwounded prisoners 
were taken. These figures are so enormous that 
few American papers have believed them. But 
the man who knows the swamps and lakes of 
that region, with their distant crown of beauti- 
ful hills, and knows the Russians, and is told 
how the German general succeeded in placing his 
cannon on those hills, sees nothing improbable 
in the official report from Berlin. Nor is he at 
all astonished at the denial of the defeat by the 
Russian generals, for unless the higher Russian 
officials have very much changed in recent years, 
they are as ready today as they ever were to play 
fast and loose with the truth in their reports to 
the Czar. 

In the foreign policy of Russia the great 
masses of the population cannot be said to have 
either a voice or an interest except in so far as 
they have been led to believe that certain things 
are absolutely necessary for their " little father," 



66 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

and that wicked enemies are trying to prevent 
him from acquiring them. 

In this way the minor Slavic races of the 
Balkans have been represented to the Russians as 
oppressed by the godless Dual Monarchy, and 
crying out for the help of God's representative 
on earth. 

The mainspring, however, of Russia's policy 
has been, for a long time, her need of a harbor 
which she can use the year around and which 
has free access to the sea. All her great harbors 
are ice-blocked in winter or secluded in the 
Black Sea. From Russia's point of view this 
demand is natural and fair. The difficulty is 
that at present no such harbor is to be had for 
the asking. Constantinople has always appealed 
to Russia as meeting her wishes. But not to 
mention the fact that the Turks already possess 
it, there are other claimants, notably Great Brit- 
ain and Austria, and latterly one or more of the 
Balkan States. 

When Russia neared Constantinople in her 
war with the Turks, Great Britain addressed to 
her the following note, on May 6, 1877. " The 
vast importance of Constantinople whether in a 
military, a political, or a commercial point of 
view is too well understood to require explana- 
tion. It is, therefore, scarcely necessary to point 
out that Her Majesty's Government are not pre- 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 67 

pared to witness with indifference the passing 
into other hands than those of its present pos- 
sessor, of a capital holding so peculiar and 
commanding a position." 

This has been Great Britain's attitude ever 
since. Constantinople holds the key not only to 
Asia Minor and thence to Egypt, but also over- 
land to India. For this reason she cannot view 
''with indifference" the passing into strong hands, 
of Constantinople. A strong power firmly es- 
tablished on the Bosphorus would threaten both 
her African and her Asiatic possessions. 

It would probably have been immaterial to 
Great Britain whether Russia or Austria sup- 
planted the Turks. The important thing was to 
maintain the status quo, for as long as Turkey 
was strong enough to keep both aspirants at 
arm's length, and at the same time to maintain 
a semblance of order in the Balkan States, Great 
Britain had nothing to fear. This is the reason 
why she has never exerted her great moral influ- 
ence in the interest of real reforms in Turkey, 
where any change could precipitate a catastrophe. 

All this might have been of secondary impor- 
tance for Germany, if she had not been bound 
to Austria by ties of friendship and treaty obli- 
gations.^ She was, therefore, concerned with 

^ For a discussion of conditions leading up to this treaty see 
Chap. VII. 



68 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the Balkan situation in so far as it touched the 
vital interests of her ally. How vital these in- 
terests are appears from a glance at the map and 
a brief historical survey. 

The Dual Monarchy consists of the great 
kingdom of Hungary ; of those German parts of 
the old German Empire, dismembered by Napo- 
leon, which were not reembodied in the federa- 
tion of German States of 1871 ; of Bohemia, 
and of a few other provinces. The most impor- 
tant are, first, the Tirol and Triest, with the sur- 
rounding territory, where there is an Italian 
population ; secondl)^, Galicia, an original part of 
Poland, and inhabited by Slavs; and thirdly, 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, also largely Slavic. 
On the southern frontier there used to be Tur- 
key. Gradually, however, one State after an- 
other won its independence, and today Ru- 
mania and Servia are Austria's neighbors in the 
south. Still farther south are Bulgaria, Monte- 
negro, Albania, and Macedonia, all original 
provinces of Turkey, and largely inhabited by 
Slavs. 

The Dual Monarchy is thus surrounded on 
three sides by Slavic races, for Bohemia in the 
northwest is inhabited by Czechs, who are 
Slavs. 

At present the German element controls the 
government in the Dual Monarchy. The mur- 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 69 

dered archduke, however, who was the heir- 
apparent, had, it is said, a far-sighted plan, 
whereby all the races represented in the Empire 
were to share in the government in proportion 
to their size and population. He was a friend 
of the Slavs, not only for political reasons, but 
sincerely. He even overcame all opposition to 
a marriage with a lady of Slavish descent, and 
for the sake of his love for her had to renounce 
for his children the right of succession to the 
throne, because she was not of royal blood. 

If the archduke had been permitted to carry 
out his policies he would probably have made a 
strong* Empire of the Dual Monarchy, for, con- 
trary to the general belief, the Austrian Italians, 
Czechs, Poles, and other Slavs are patriotically 
Austrian. 

Where there is so much foreign propaganda, 
Russian, Servian, and Italian, all meant to dis- 
rupt the Monarchy, it would be dangerous to 
speak with too much assurance, but visitors to 
the Tirol, Bohemia, Galicia, and Bosnia have 
received the impression that the masses in gen- 
eral are satisfied with their Austrian allegiance, 
and that of the educated people an overwhelm- 
ing majority feel the same. 

This is not surprising, because, barring the 
Italian Austrians, all the other people in question 
would exchange a union with a highly civilized 



70 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

State for one of far less advanced ideas. There 
can be no doubt that the Bohemians and GaH- 
cians are better off now than if they fell under 
the autocratic sway of the Czar. The greatest 
losers, however, by a change would be the people 
of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These provinces 
were incorporated into the Dual Monarchy in 
1908 after they had been Austrian for all prac- 
tical purposes through thirty years. 

This act of Austria appeared so arbitrary at 
the time, and is so often mentioned as at the 
bottom of the present war, that it is advisable 
to listen also to the Austrian explanation, and 
to check its credibility by an impartial source of 
information, such as is contained in the Report 
of the International Commission to Inquire into 
the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars. 
It is one of the publications of the Carnegie En- 
dowment for International Peace, and was is- 
sued in 19 14. 

Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Senator of 
France, and Professor Paul Milioukov, member 
of the Russian Douma, were prominent members 
of the commission. In addition there were two 
representatives of Great Britain, one of the 
United States, one of Austria, one of Germany, 
and one other Frenchman. 

Russia's successful war against Turkey in 
1877 was terminated by the Treaty of San Ste- 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 71 

fano and the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Both 
these treaties meant a check to the Russian ad- 
vance toward Constantinople. Russia was, how- 
ever, permitted to push the entering wedge of 
her influence into the Turkish Empire by receiv- 
ing a practically free hand in Bulgaria. This 
State, while still under the suzerainty of Turkey, 
was to be independent under Russian tutelage. 
Since it was obviously unfair to Austria-Hun- 
gary to have her powerful neighbor to the north 
and east, Russia, get a foothold also to the south 
of her, without being able to exert her own in- 
fluence in the Balkan provinces, Turkey ceded 
to her Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose future 
allegiance to Turkey was to be only nominal. 
This met with Russia's approval, v^hose note to 
Great Britain, June 8, 1877, reads : Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, " being situated conterminously 
with Austria-Hungary, give the latter a right to 
a preponderating voice in their future organiza- 
tion." These provinces were ceded to Austria 
in July, 1878. They were occupied by Austria 
on July 28, 1878, and the final treaty with Tur- 
key was signed on April 21, 1879. 

Nobody who knows conditions existing in the 
Balkans at that time will believe that Austria 
should have taken a plebiscite to see whether the 
inhabitants wished to leave Turkey and become 
Austrian. Such things were not done at that 



72 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

time, the best proof of which is that England 
forced Turkey to cede to her the island of Cy- 
prus under practically the same conditions on 
August 14, 1878. Nor has the island since been 
returned to Turkey or been permitted to form 
its own government. On the contrary, it has 
been incorporated into the British body politic. 

As soon as Austria took hold of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina roads and railways were built, tel- 
ephones and telegraphs installed, rich mines were 
opened, and best of all, many schools were built. 
The lower class Mohammedans were altogether 
illiterate, and of the Catholics less than four per 
cent, could read or write. Thirty years of good 
government had placed the provinces on the road 
to success, when the Balkan troubles began. 
Bulgaria had long since thrown off Turkish 
suzerainty and Russian tutelage. Rumania had 
grown strong, Servia had developed great prow- 
ess, and it became apparent that Turkey, driven 
back unto Constantinople, could not again exert 
any claims on Bosnia and Herzegovina. As long 
as these provinces were nominally Turkish, Ser- 
via or Bulgaria could have asked them of Turkey 
with a semblance of right as an indemnity in a 
war that everybody saw coming, and which actu- 
ally took place within a few years. 

This would have been a misfortune for these 
provinces, which were thriving under Austrian 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 73 

rule. The inhabitants are largely Slavs, it is 
true, but while the Servians and the Bulgarians 
are also Slavs there never have been greater 
cruelties recorded than are described in the Car- 
negie Report on the Balkan Wars as having 
taken place between these two Slavic races. If 
this Report were not illustrated with photo- 
graphs of some wretches surviving their tor- 
tures, one would hardly believe these accounts. 
The saddest part of the whole affair is that such 
excesses are done in the name of freedom, and 
that Austria's wish to protect the Bosnians from 
a like fate is heralded to the world as an act of 
autocracy. No more cruel thing could have been 
done than to leave the status of Bosnia uncertain, 
and to expose her to the unspeakable outrages 
which reduced Macedonia to a wilderness, when 
Turkey was driven out and the several Slavic 
States and Greece began to fight among them- 
selves for the possession of Macedonia. 

Read the Carnegie Report on the Balkan 
Wars, and then an account of the progress made 
by Bosnia under Austrian rule from 1878 to 
1908. This is the only fair way of deciding the 
question whether Austria was justified in incor- 
porating these provinces. Many conversant 
with the conditions in the Balkans believe that 
Austria would have committed a crime against 
humanity if she had left Bosnia to be the play- 



74 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

thing of the lesser Slavic nations, and had per- 
mitted her to share the fate of Macedonia. 

One other fact which seems to stand out 
clearly from the Carnegie Report is the improba- 
bility of Servia taking any decisive step diplo- 
matically before being assured of Russia's sup- 
port. One is tempted, in fact, to say that for 
some time Servia had taken no step which was 
not really an act of Russia. This statement, it 
is true, cannot be proved by the Report, but the 
number of Servian officers and officials on the 
Russian payroll is enormous. 

The murder of the Austrian archduke on 
June 28, 19 14, by Servian assassins, and with 
weapons supplied from the Servian arsenal by 
Servian officers, made not nearly the impression 
on the world at large that it made on Austria. 
Elsewhere people were too satiated with the hor- 
rible accounts from the Balkans, to be startled. 
If they will, however, imagine such a thing as 
the murder of the most prominent American by 
Mexican assassins and with weapons supplied by 
the Mexican Government, and if they will further 
imagine the escape of the conspirators into Mex- 
ican territory by the help of the Mexican offi- 
cials, and the Mexican press breaking forth into 
joyful paeans at the success of the crime, while 
the Mexican Government was taking no steps 
against any of the conspirators — then they will 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 75 

begin to realize the feelings of Austria at the 
dastardly murder of Serajewo. 

This assassination, moreover, was only the 
culmination of numberless Servian acts designed 
to disrupt the Dual Monarchy. Russia would 
gain most by the downfall of Austria-Hungary, 
and since her strong influence in Servia is known, 
the suspicion has grown that some of her leaders 
were not ignorant of the attempt made on the 
life of the archduke. 

Almost four weeks after the murder Austria 
sent her ultimatum to Servia. It was very 
strongly worded and undoubtedly less diplomatic 
than Great Britain would have wTitten it had she 
been in Austria's position. The British State 
papers are always well written, for her world- 
wide interests have taught her that official docu- 
ments are strong factors in the shaping of public 
opinion. They are, therefore, written not only 
for the benefit of the recipient, but also for the 
world at large. If Germany and Austria would 
follow this example they would meet less oppo- 
sition in foreign countries. It is not so much 
what they do as the way they do it that offends 
people. 

Germany has only recently acquired the rank 
of a world power, and is perhaps excusable if 
she feels that it is more important to be right 
than to appear right. Such an attitude, however. 



76 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

is not wise, for it may convey the impression to 
distant people that their opinion is not valued, 
and that, of course, is offensive. 

A more temperately worded ultimatum to 
Servia might have won the sympathy of the 
world for Austria, instead of seemingly proving 
Servia's contention that the Dual Monarchy was 
arbitrary. People in possession of the facts can- 
not for one instant believe that Bosnia would 
be better off if she were united with Servia, but 
the vast majority of the people cannot know all 
the facts, and since Austria's note appeared to 
be arbitrary, it was natural for people to assume 
that her rule was also arbitrary. 

When Russia mobilized and apparently sup- 
ported the Servians, Germany was placed before 
the dilemma of breaking faith with her ally, or 
of facing a possible war with Russia. The Ger- 
mans believe that their government was influ- 
enced in its action solely by its desire to be faith- 
ful to an ally in its hour of need. 

Worldly wisdom, however, would have coun- 
seled the same course. If Germany had for- 
saken Austria in July, 19 14, she would un- 
doubtedly have postponed the evil day, but when 
at last that day had come, Germany would have 
been obliged to fight entirely alone, for Austria 
could not have forgiven her desertion. 

In this connection Bismarck's explanation of 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 77 

the alliance with Austria is important. He made 
it in the Reichstag on February 6, 1888, two days 
after the treaty had been published. This should 
be borne in mind, for anti-German publicists 
have given as one of their reasons why they 
could not sympathize with Germany their belief 
that secret alliances are at the bottom of the 
great war. Germany's treaties are and have 
been for years public property, while some of the 
agreements of the allies have been and still are 
secret. 

Bismarck explained that Germany had owed a 
debt of gratitude to Russia for her support dur- 
ing the Napoleonic wars, and that this realiza- 
tion had determined his unwavering support of 
Russian demands at all international conferences 
where Germany had had a voice. Russia, never- 
theless, had felt aggrieved at her failure to reach 
closer to Constantinople after her war with 
Turkey in 1877, and had blamed Germany for 
it. " What then was my surprise and natural 
disappointment," said Bismarck, " when gradu- 
ally a sort of newspaper campaign began in St. 
Petersburg, which attacked the German policy, 
and cast suspicion on my personal intentions. 
These attacks increased in the following year to 
the strong request, in 1879, for pressure to be 
exerted by us in Austria in matters where we 
could not attack the Austrian rights as such. I 



78 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

could not consent, for if we should have been 
estranged from Austria, we should necessarily 
have fallen into a dependence on Russia, unless 
we had been satisfied with standing entirely 
alone in Europe. Would such a dependence 
have been bearable? Formerly I had believed it 
might be, when I had said to myself : ' We have 
no conflicting interests at all. There is no reason 
why Russia should ever cancel her friendship.' 
But the Russian behavior concerning the Con- 
gress disappointed me, and told me that we were 
not protected from being drawn into a conflict 
with Russia against our wishes, even if we placed 
our policy (for a time) completely at her dis- 
posal. . . . This is the origin of our Austrian 
treaty." 

Twenty-six years have passed since Bismarck 
said this, and in spite of frequent attempts at a 
better understanding Russia has never forgotten 
that it was the voice of Germany which, as she 
believes, turned the scales in favor of Turkey 
and kept the Russian people out of Constanti- 
nople. 

The stronger Germany grew and the more 
faithful she proved to her allies the less willing 
was Russian public opinion to look for friend- 
ship with her western neighbor. On the con- 
trary the conviction increased that Germany 
stood in the way of Russian aspirations. This 



RUSSIA, SLAVS, AND GERMANY 79 

feeling is well expressed in the words which have 
often appeared in the Russian press, and which 
have been heard in the conversation of people 
everywhere, occasionally even in high quarters : 
" The Russian road to Constantinople goes 
through Berlin." 



CHAPTER VII 

GERMANY AND CONTINENTAL EUROPE 

Present - day writers have to contend with the 
difficulty of seeming to present ex parte evidence. 
No such presumption attaches to speeches de- 
livered long before the war and addressed to the 
Germans exclusively. They explain, for in- 
stance, what Germany really believed when she 
laid the foundations for her army and navy, and 
are, therefore, invaluable for the man who 
wishes to form his own opinion on the causes of 
the European war. 

The reasons which induced the German Gov- 
ernment to propose a great increase in its mili- 
tary strength in 1888, and which made the 
Reichstag willing to vote the necessary funds, are 
contained in a speech by Bismarck,^ delivered 
February 6, 1888, and known under the title 
" We Germans fear God and Naught else in the 
World." 

^An excellent collection of Bismarck's speeches in translation 
is given in the German Classics, edited by Prof. Kuno Francke, 
and published by the German Publication Society, 597 Fifth 
Avenue, New York. 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 81 

Bismarck left the elucidation of the bill for 
which he was speaking to his assistants, and gave 
his hearers a survey of the recent history of 
Europe in so far as it touched Germany. He 
assured the Reichstag that Germany was com- 
pelled to be strong because she was placed in the 
heart of Europe amidst warlike nations and 
because she would have to defend her union. He 
urged a strong army of defence, and promised 
that Germany should never use it as a means of 
attack. His arguments proved convincing, and 
it must be admitted that Germany has never in- 
tentionally deviated from the principles he laid 
down. He said in part: 

I am confident that the German Reichstag will 
grant us an increase in our armed force, and will 
do so, not on account of the position in which 
we happen to find ourselves, nor of any fears 
which may be swaying the stock exchange and 
public opinion, but because of an anticipatory 
estimate of the general conditions of Europe. 
In addressing you, therefore, I shall have to say 
more about these conditions than about the bill. 

A year ago we were largely concerned with the 
possible cause of war emanating from France. 
Since then a peace-loving president has dropped 
the reins of government, and another peace- 
loving president has succeeded him. It is a fa- 
vorable sign that the French Government did not 
dip into Pandora's box in calling to office another 
chief magistrate, and that we may be assured of 



82 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the continuance under President Carnot of the 
peaceful poHcy which President Grevy was 
known to represent. Changes in the French 
cabinet are even more reassuring than the change 
in the presidency, where a great many different 
reasons had to be considered. The ministers 
who might have been ready to subordinate the 
peace of their own country and of Europe to 
their personal plans have resigned, and others 
have taken their places of whom we need not 
fear this. I believe, therefore, that I may state 
that our outlook toward France is more peaceful 
and less explosive today than it was a year ago, 
and I am glad to do this, because I wish to quiet, 
not to excite, public opinion. 

The fears which have sprung up during the 
last twelve months have had to do more with 
Russia than with France, or I may say with the 
exchange of excitement, threats, insults, and 
challenges in the French and Russian papers 
during the past summer. 

Nevertheless, I believe that our relations with 
Russia have not changed from what they were 
last year. The only events which could have 
occasioned a change of opinion are the attitude 
of the Russian press and the allocation of the 
Russian troops. 

As regards the press, I cannot assign iany 
importance to it per se. People say that it is of 
greater consequence in Russia than in France. 
I believe the very opposite to be true. In France 
the press is a power influencing the decisions of 
the government. In Russia it is not, nor can it 
be. In both cases, however, the press is, so far 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 83 

as I am concerned, mere printer's ink on paper, 
against which we do not wage war. It cannot 
contain a challenge for us. Back of each article 
in the press there stands, after all, only the single 
man who guided the pen which launched this 
particular article into the world. 

I now come to the other point, the allocation 
of the troops. It used to take place on a big 
scale, but only since 1879, when the Turkish war 
was concluded, has it assumed the proportions 
which today seem threatening. It may easily 
appear as if this accumulation of Russian troops 
near the German and Austrian frontiers — 
where their support is more difficult and more 
expensive than farther inland — could only be 
dictated by the intention of surprising and at- 
tacking one of the neighbors unprepared, sans 
dire gare! (I cannot for the moment think of 
the German expression.) Well, I do not believe 
this. In the first place, it would be contrary to 
the character of the sovereign and his own words, 
and secondly its object could not easily be under- 
stood. Russia cannot intend to conquer any 
Prussian provinces, nor, I believe, any Austrian 
provinces. Russia has, I believe, as many Polish 
subjects as it cares to have, and has no desire 
to increase their numbers. To annex anything 
but Polish districts from Austria would be even 
more difficult. No reason exists, no pretence 
which could induce a European monarch sud- 
denly to assail his neighbors. I even go so far 
in my confidence as to be convinced that a Rus- 
sian war would not ensue if we should become 
involved in a French war because of some explo- 



84 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

sive happenings in France, which no one can 
foresee and which surely are not intended by the 
present French Government. A French war, on 
the other hand, would be an absolute certainty 
if we should be involved in a Russian war, for 
no French Government would be so strong that 
it could prevent it, even if it was inclined to do 
so. But as regards Russia I still declare that I 
am not looking for an attack; and I take back 
nothing from what I said last year. 

You will ask : " If that is so, what is the use 
of this expensive allocation of the Russian 
troops?" That is one of the questions for 
which one hardly can expect an answer from a 
ministry of foreign affairs, itself vitally inter- 
ested. If we should begin to ask for explana- 
tions, we might receive forced replies, and our 
surrejoinders would also have to be forced. 
That is a dangerous path which I do not like to 
tread. Allocations of troops are things for 
which one does not take the other country to 
task, asking for categorical explanations, but 
against which one takes counter precautions with 
equal reserve and circumspection. 

I cannot, therefore, give an authentic declara- 
tion concerning the motives of this Russian allo- 
cation, but, having been familiar through a gen- 
eration with foreign politics and the policy of 
Russia, I can form my own ideas concerning 
them. These ideas lead me to assume that the 
Russian cabinet is convinced, probably with good 
reason, that the weight of the Russian voice in 
the diplomatic Areopagos of Europe will be the 
weightier in the next European crisis, the 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 85 

stronger Russia is on the European frontier and 
the farther west the Russian armies stand. Rus- 
sia is the more quickly at hand, either as an ally 
or as a foe, the nearer her main army, or at least 
a large army, is to her western frontier. 

This policy has directed the Russian allocation 
of troops for a long while. You will remember 
that the army assembled in the Polish kingdom 
during the Crimean War was so large that this 
war might have ended differently if the army 
had started on time. If you think farther back, 
you will see that the events of 1830 found Russia 
unprepared and not ready to take a hand, because 
she had an insufficient number of troops in the 
v\^estern part of her empire. I need not, there- 
fore, draw the conclusion from the accumulation 
of Russian troops in the western provinces 
(sapadnii Gnhernii, as the Russians say), that 
our neighbors mean to attack us. I assume they 
are waiting, possibly for another Oriental crisis, 
intending then to be in the position of pressing 
home the Russian wishes by means of an army 
situated not exactly in Kasan, but farther west. 

When may such an Oriental crisis take place, 
you ask. Forsooth, we have no certainty. Dur- 
ing this century we have had, I think, four crises, 
if I do not include the smaller ones and those 
which did not culminate. One was in 1809 and 
ended with the treaty which gave Russia the 
Pruth-frontier, and another in 1828. Then there 
was the Crimean War of 1854, and the war of 
1877. They have happened, therefore, at inter- 
vals of about twenty years and over. Why, then, 
should the next crisis take place sooner than after 



86 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

a similar interval, or at about 1899, twenty years 
after the last one? I for one should like to 
reckon with the possibility of its being postponed 
and not occurring immediately. 

Then there are other European events which 
are wont to take place at even intervals, the 
Polish uprisings, for instance. Formerly we had 
to expect one every eighteen or twenty years. 
Possibly this is one reason why Russia wishes 
to be so strong in Poland, that she may prevent 
them. Then there are the changes of govern- 
ment in France which also used to happen every 
eighteen or twenty years; and no one can deny 
that a change of government in France may 
bring about such a crisis that every interested 
nation may wish to be able to intervene with her 
full might — I mean only diplomatically, but 
with a diplomacy which is backed by an efficient 
army close at hand. 

I assume on the strength of my purely techni- 
cal-diplomatic judgment, which is based on my 
experience, that these are the intentions of Rus- 
sia and that she has no wish to comply with the 
somewhat uncouth threats and boastings of the 
newspapers. And, if this is so, then there is 
surely no reason why we should look more 
gloomily into the future now than we have done 
at any time during the past forty years. The 
Oriental crisis is undoubtedly the most likely to 
occur, and in this our interests are only second- 
ary. When it happens, we are in a position to 
watch whether the powers, who are primarily in- 
terested in the Mediterranean and the Levant, 
will make their decisions and come to terms, if 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 87 

they choose, or go to war with Russia about 
them. We are not immediately called upon to do 
either. Every great power which is trying to 
influence or to restrain the policies of other coun- 
tries in matters which are beyond the sphere of 
its interests is playing politics beyond the bounds 
which God has assigned to it. Its policy is one 
of force and not of vital interests. It is working 
for prestige. We shall not do this. If Oriental 
crises happen, we shall wait before taking our 
position until the powers who have greater inter- 
ests at stake than we, have declared themselves. 

There is, therefore, no reason, gentlemen, why 
you should look upon our present situation with 
unusual gravity, assuming this to be the cause of 
our asking for the mighty increase of our arma- 
ments which the military bill contemplates. I 
should like to separate the question of reestab- 
lishing the Landwehr of the second grade, in 
short the big military bill and the financial bill, 
from the question of our present situation. It 
has to do, not with a temporary and transient 
arrangement, but with the permanent invigora- 
tion of the German Empire. 

That no temporary arrangement is contem- 
plated will be perfectly clear, I believe, when I 
ask you to survey with me the dangers of war 
which we have met in the past forty years with- 
out having become nervously excited at any one 
time. 

In the year 1848, when many dikes and flood 
gates were broken, which until then had directed 
the peaceful flow of countless waters, we had to 
dispose of two questions freighted with the dan- 



88 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

ger of war. They concerned Poland and Schles- 
wig-Holstein. The first shouts after the Martial 
days were : War with Russia for the rehabihta- 
tion of Poland ! Soon thereafter the danger was 
perilously near of being involved in a great Eu- 
ropean war on account of Schleswig-Holstein. I 
need not emphasize how the agreement of 
Olmiitz, in 1850, prevented a great conflagration 
— a war on a gigantic scale. Then there fol- 
lowed two years of greater quiet but of general 
ill feeling, at the time when I first was ambassa- 
dor in Frankfort. In 1853 the earliest symptoms 
of the Crimean War made themselves felt. This 
war lasted from 1853 to 1856, and during this 
whole time we were near the edge of the cliff, 
I will not say the abyss, whence it was intended 
to draw us into the war. I remember that I was 
obliged at that time, from 1853 to 1855, to alter- 
nate like a pendulum, so to speak, between 
Frankfort and Berlin, because the late king, 
thanks to the confidence he had in me, used me 
as the real advocate of his independent policy 
whenever the insistence of the western powers 
that we too should declare war on Russia grew 
too strong, and the opposition of his cabinet too 
flabby for his liking. Then the play was staged 
— I do not know how often — when I was called 
back here and ordered to write for His Majesty 
a more pro-Russian dispatch, and Mr. von Man- 
teuffel resigned, and I requested to be instructed 
by His Majesty to follow Mr. von Manteuffel, 
after the dispatch was gone, into the country or 
anywhere else, and to induce him to resume his 
office. Yet each time Prussia was hovering on 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 89 

the brink of a great war. It was exposed to the 
hostility of the whole of Europe, except Russia, 
if it refused to join in the policies of the west 
European powers, and, if it did, it was forced to 
break with Russia, possibly for a very long while, 
because the defection of Prussia would probably 
have been felt very painfully in Russia. 

During the Crimean War, therefore, we were 
in constant danger of war. The war lasted till 
1856, when it was at last concluded by the Treaty 
of Paris, and we found, in the Congress of Paris, 
a sort of Canossa prepared for us, for which I 
should not have assumed the responsibility, and 
against which I vainly counseled at the time. 
We were not at all obliged to play the part of a 
greater power than we were, and to sign the 
treaties made there. But we were dancing at- 
tendance with the view of being permitted to sign 
the treaty. This will not again happen to us. 

That was in 1856, and in 1857 the problem of 
Neuchatel was again threatening war. This did 
not become generally known. In the spring of 
that year I was sent to Paris by the late king to 
negotiate with Emperor Napoleon concerning the 
passage of Prussian troops in an attack upon 
Switzerland. Everyone who hears this from me 
will know what this would have meant In case of 
an understanding, and that it could have become 
a far-reaching danger of war, and might have 
involved us with France as well as with other 
powers. Emperor Napoleon was not unwilling 
to agree. My negotiations in Paris, however, 
were terminated because His Majesty the King 
in the meanwhile had come to an amicable under- 



90 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

standing in the matter with Austria and Switzer- 
land. But the danger of war, we must agree, 
was present also during that year. 

While I was on this mission in Paris, the Ital- 
ian War hung in the air. It broke out a little 
more than a year later and came very near draw- 
ing us into a big general war of Europe. We 
went so far as to mobilize, and we should un- 
doubtedly have taken the field, if the Peace of 
Villafranca had not been concluded, somewhat 
prematurely for Austria, but just in time for our- 
selves, for we should have been obliged to wage 
this war under unfavorable circumstances. We 
should have turned this war, which was an Ital- 
ian affair, into a Franco-Prussian war, and its 
cessation, outcome, and treaty of peace would no 
longer have depended on us, but on the friends 
and enemies who stood behind us. 

Thus we came into the sixties without the 
clouds of war having cleared from the horizon 
for even one single year. 

Already in 1863 another war threatened 
hardly less ominously, of which the people at 
large knew little, and which will only be appre- 
ciated when the secret archives of the cabinets 
will be made public. You may remember the 
Polish uprising of 1863, ^-^^ ^ shall never forget 
the morning calls which I used to receive at that 
time from Sir Andrew Buchanan, the English 
ambassador, and Talleyrand, the French repre- 
sentative, who tried to frighten me out of my 
wits by attacking the Prussian policy for its in- 
excusable adherence to Russia, and who used 
rather a threatening language with me. At noon 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 91 

I then used to have the pleasure of listening in 
the Prussian diet to somewhat the same argu- 
ments and attacks which the foreign ambassa- 
dors had made upon me in the morning. I suf- 
fered it quietly, but Emperor Alexander lost his 
patience, and wished to draw his sword against 
the plotting of the western powers. You will 
remember that the French forces were then en- 
gaged with American projects and in Mexico, 
which prevented France from taking a vigorous 
stand. The Emperor of Russia was no longer 
willing to stand the Polish intrigues of the other 
powers, and was ready to face events in our com- 
pany and to go to war. You will remember that 
Prussia was struggling at that time with difficult 
interior problems, and that in Germany the 
leaven had begun to work in the minds of the 
people, and the council of the princes in Frank- 
fort was under contemplation. It may be read- 
ily granted, therefore, that the temptation for my 
gracious master was very strong to cut, and thus 
to heal, his difficult position at home by agreeing 
to a military undertaking on a colossal scale. 

At that time war of Prussia and Russia to- 
gether against those who were protecting the 
Polish insurrection against us would undoubtedly 
have taken place if His Majesty had not recoiled 
from the thought of solving home difficulties, 
Prussian as well as German, with foreign help. 
We declined in silence, and without revealing to 
the other German powers who had hostile proj- 
ects against us the reasons which had deter- 
mined our course. The subsequent death of the 
King of Denmark changed the trend of thought 



92 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

of everybody interested. But all that was needed 
to bring about the great coalition war in 1863 
was a " Yes " instead of a " No " from His 
Majesty the King in Gastein. Anybody but a 
German minister would perhaps have counseled 
affirmatively, from reasons of utility and oppor- 
tunism in order to solve thereby our home diffi- 
culties. You see neither our own people nor 
foreigners really have a proper appreciation of 
the amount of national loyalty and high princi- 
ples which guides both the sovereign and his 
ministers in the government of German States. 

The year 1864 — we just spoke of 1863 — 
brought a new pressing danger of war. From 
the moment when our troops crossed the Eider, 
I was ready each week to see the European 
Council of Elders interfere in this Danish af- 
fair, and you will agree with me that this was 
highly probable. 

In 1865 it faced about, and the preparations 
for the war of 1866 were beginning. In 1866, 
however, the war broke out in full force, as you 
know. A circumspect use of events alone ena- 
bled us to ward off the existing danger of turn- 
ing this duel between Prussia and Austria into 
a fierce European war of coalition, when our very 
existence, our life and all we had, would have 
been at stake. 

This was in 1866, and in 1867 the Luxem- 
bourg problem arose, when only a somewhat 
firmer reply was needed to bring about the great 
French war in that year, — and we might have 
given it, if we had been so strong that we could 
have counted on success. From then on, during 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 93 

1868, 1869, and up to 1870 we were living in 
constant apprehension of war, and of the agree- 
ments which in the time of Mr, von Beust were 
being made in Salzburg and other places between 
France, Italy, and Austria, and which, we feared, 
were directed against us. The apprehension of 
war was so great at that time that I received calls 
— ■ I was the president of the cabinet — from 
merchants and manufacturers, who said : " The 
uncertainty is unbearable. Why don't you 
strike the first blow? War is preferable to this 
continued damper on all business! " We waited 
quietly until we were struck, and I believe we did 
well to arrange matters so that we were the na- 
tion which was assailed and were not ourselves 
the assailants. 

Now, since the great war of 1870 was waged, 
has there been a year, I ask you, without the 
danger of war? In the first years of the seven- 
ties — the very moment we came home, the ques- 
tion arose : " When will be the next war ? When 
will revenge be given? Within five years at the 
latest, no doubt?" We were told: "The ques- 
tion whether we shall have to fight and with 
what success surely rests with Russia now-a- 
days. Russia alone holds the hilt." It was a 
representative of the Catholic party who thus 
remonstrated with me in the Reichstag. But I 
wish to complete the picture of the forty years 
by saying that in 1876 the clouds of war again 
began to gather in the south. In 1877 the 
Balkan War was waged, which would have led 
to a conflagration of the whole of Europe, if this 
had not been prevented by the Congress gathered 



94 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

in Berlin. After the Congress an entirely new 
eastern picture presented itself to us, for Russia 
was offended by our attitude in the Congress. 

Then there followed a period when we felt the 
results of the intimate relations of the three em- 
perors, which for some time permitted us to face 
the future with greater placidity. But at the first 
symptoms of any instability in the relations of 
the three emperors or of the termination of the 
agreements which they had made with one an- 
other, public opinion was possessed of the same 
nervous and, I believe, exaggerated excitement 
with which we have had to contend these last 
years, and which I consider especially uncalled 
for today. 

From my belief that this excitement is uncalled 
for I am far from drawing the conclusion that 
we do not need an increase in our armaments. 
The very opposite is my view, and this may ex- 
plain the tableau of forty years vi^hich I have just 
exhibited before you. 

Great complications and all kinds of coalitions, 
which no one can foresee, are constantly possible, 
and we must be prepared for them. We must 
be so strong, irrespective of momentary condi- 
tions, that we can face any coalition with the 
assurance of a great nation which is strong 
enough under circumstances to take her fate into 
her own hands. We must be able to face our 
fate placidly with that self-reliance and confi- 
dence in God which are ours when we are strong 
and our cause is just. And the Government will 
see to it that the German cause will be just 
always. 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 95 

We must, to put it briefly, be as strong in 
these times as we possibly can be, .and we can 
be stronger than any other nation of equal num- 
bers in the world. I shall revert to this later — 
but it would be criminal if we were not to make 
use of our opportunity. If we do not need our 
full armed strength, we need not summon it. 
The only problem is the not very weighty one of 
money — not very weighty I say in passing, 
because I have no wish to enter upon a discus- 
sion of the financial and military figures, and of 
the fact that France has spent three milliards for 
the improvement of her armaments these last 
years, while we have spent scarcely one and one 
half milliards, including what we are asking of 
you at this time. But I leave the elucidation of 
this to the minister of war and the representa- 
tives of the treasury department. 

When I say that it is our duty to endeavor 
to be ready at all times and for all emergencies, 
I imply that we must make greater exertions 
than other people for the same purpose, because 
of our geographical position. We are situated 
in the heart of Europe, and have at least three 
fronts open to an attack. France has only her 
eastern, and Russia only her western frontier 
where they may be attacked. We are also more 
exposed to the dangers of a coalition than any 
other nation, as is proved by the whole develop- 
ment of history, by our geographical position, 
and the lesser degree of cohesiveness, which until 
now has characterized the German nation in 
comparison with others. God has placed us 
where we are prevented, thanks to our neighbors, 



96 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

from growing lazy and dull. He has placed by 
our side the most warlike and restless of all na- 
tions, the French, and He has permitted warlike 
inclinations to grow strong in Russia, where 
formerly they existed to a lesser degree. Thus 
we are given a spur, so to speak, from both 
sides, and are compelled to exertions which we 
should perhaps not be making otherwise. The 
pikes in the European carp-pond are keeping us 
from being carps by making us feel their teeth 
on both sides. They also are forcing us to an 
exertion which without them we might not make, 
and to a union among us Germans, which is 
abhorrent to us at heart. By nature we are 
rather tending away, the one from the other. 
But the Franco-Russian press within which we 
are squeezed compels us to hold together, and 
by pressure our cohesive force is greatly in- 
creased. This will bring us to that state of 
being inseparable which all other nations pos- 
sess, while we do not yet enjoy it. But we must 
respond to the intentions of Providence by 
making ourselves so strong that the pikes can 
do nothing but encourage us. 

Formerly in the years of the Holy Alliance — 
I am just thinking of an American song which 
I learned of my late friend Motley : " In good 
old colonial times, when we lived under a King " 
— well, those were the good old patriarchal times 
when we had many posts to guide us, and many 
dikes to protect us from the wild floods of Eu- 
rope. There were the German Union, and the 
real support and consummation of the German 
Union, the Holy Alliance. We had support in 



GERMANY AND EUROPE 97 

Russia and in Austria, and, above all, the guar- 
anty of our diffidence never permitted us to 
express an opinion before the others had spoken. 

All this v/e have lost ; we must help ourselves. 
The Holy Alliance was wrecked in the Crimean 
War — not through our fault. The German 
Union has been destroyed by us, because the 
existence which we were granted within it was 
unbearable in the long run for ourselves and 
the German people as well. After the dissolu- 
tion of the German Union and the war of 1866, 
Prussia, as it was then, or North Germany, 
would have become isolated, if we had been 
obliged to count with the fact that nobody would 
be willing to pardon our new successes — the 
great successes which we had won. No great 
power looks with favor on the successes of its 
neighbors. 

To sum up : I do not believe in an immediate 
interruption of peace, and I ask you to discuss 
this bill independently of such a thought or ap- 
prehension, looking upon it as a means of ma- 
king the great strength which God has placed 
in the German nation fully available. If we do 
not need all the troops, it is not necessary to 
summon them. We are trying to avoid the con- 
tingency when we shall need them. 

This attempt is as yet made rather difficult 
for us by the threatening newspaper articles in 
the foreign press, and I should like to admonish 
these foreign editors to discontinue such threats. 
They do not lead anywhere. The threats which 
we see made — not by the governments, but by 
the press — are really incredibly stupid, when 



98 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

we stop to reflect that the people making them 
imagine they could frighten the proud and pow- 
erful German empire by certain intimidating 
figures made by printer's ink and shallow words. 
People should not do this. It would then be 
easier for us to be more obliging to our two 
neighbors. Every country after all is sooner 
or later responsible for the windows which its 
press has smashed. The bill will be rendered 
some day, and will consist of the ill-feeling of 
the other country. We are easily influenced — 
perhaps too easily — by love and kindness, but 
quite surely never by threats ! We Germans fear 
God, and naught else in the world ! It is this 
fear of God which makes us love and cherish 
peace. If in spite of this anybody breaks the 
peace, he will discover that the ardent patriotism 
of 1813, which called to the standards the entire 
population of Prussia — weak, small, and 
drained to the marrow as it then was — has 
today become the common property of the whole 
German nation. Attack the German nation any- 
where, and you will find it armed to a man, and 
every man with the firm belief in his heart : God 
will be with us. 



CHAPTER VIII 

GERMANY AND ENGLAND 

Two years ago Paul Rohrbach ^ addressed to 
the Germans a powerful plea for a more pur- 
poseful realization of their moral responsibilities 
as a world power. He showed them their past, 
pointed to the defects of their character, to their 
problems at home and abroad, and closed with 
an impassioned appeal that they drop from their 
train of thoughts and actions every petty notion, 
and be worthy of the material greatness they 
had achieved. In this world, he said, only moral 
questions count, and nobody can long maintain 
a position of importance unless moral forces 
issue from him for the benefit of mankind. 

Rohrbach's whole book is a book of peace 
and moral justice. He is, therefore, the last 
man to misrepresent wilfully England's attitude 
toward Germany; and what he said to his coun- 
trymen two years ago may well be quoted as 
having shaped the opinions of the most thought- 

^Paul Rohrbach. Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt, published 
by Karl Robert Langewiesche, Diisseldorf, 191 2. 



100 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

ful, especially since his book was sold by the 
tens of thousands. 

It may be doubted whether the many threat- 
ening remarks from English statesmen and pub- 
licists quoted by Dr. Rohrbach should have been 
taken by him at their face value. He, however, 
believed that they expressed the temper of the 
British people, and the British attitude since the 
war would seem to bear him out. In war time, 
however, passions are high, and people repeat, 
from a sense of patriotism, what they do not 
really believe. When people realize that they 
have given their opponents reasonable cause for 
suspicion, the foundations for an amicable un- 
derstanding are quickly found. Herein lies the 
hope of the cessation of the British-German bit- 
terness. If Germany could feel sure that Great 
Britain did not wish to destroy her commerce, 
and if Great Britain felt that Germany had no 
desire of attacking her, the two nations, who are 
each other's best customers, would no longer 
wish to wage a war to the death. 

Great Britain also should realize that, however 
sincere she is in her claim that she went to war 
as the protector of neutral Belgium, there are 
incidents in her career which justify an opponent 
in doubting this. British men and women have 
done much to advance the civilization of the 
world and may perhaps justly claim that the 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 101 

present state of British morality in dealing with 
other nations is such that it is unfair to judge 
Great Britain by what she did years ago. The 
political memory of nations, however, is long, 
and Germany has not forgotten that only about 
a hundred years ago the British fleet appeared 
before Copenhagen and bombarded the open 
city, destroying, among other buildings, the finest 
church of Denmark. Denmark was then a neu- 
tral country during the war between Great 
Britain and Napoleon. Great Britain did not 
respect her neutrality, but after her successful 
bombardment carried off the Danish fleet as a 
prize. She did the same thing in 1807 with the 
island of Madeira, which she kept in her pos- 
session until 1814; and in both cases her excuse 
was that she wished to anticipate a possible 
invasion of these countries by Napoleon. 

In view of such comparatively recent events, 
she should at least acknowledge the reasonable- 
ness of her opponent's suspicion, and try to allay 
it rather than to fan it by the inflammatory 
speeches of some of her statesmen. 

In quoting the following extract of the sixth 
chapter of Dr. Rohrbach's book, the attempt is 
made of showing that it was easy for Germany 
to believe that Great Britain was planning her 
destruction : ^ 

^ Compare, however, above with Chapter V. 



102 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

It is so important for us to understand the 
gradual development of the English animosity 
against us, and without this so impossible to 
understand the workings of present-day politics 
that we must discuss this subject at some length 
before we can indicate a proper course of action. 
If one looks for a date after which our relations 
with England grew strained, the year 1890 oc- 
curs to one, when England ceded to us the island 
of Heligoland in return for considerable con- 
cessions in Africa. The cession of Heligoland 
clearly proves that at that time nobody in Eng- 
land believed that the German navy could ever 
grow strong enough to be dangerous to Eng- 
land's supremacy on the sea. It is true that the 
English merchants had already begun to com- 
plain of German competition. In 1887 the Eng- 
lish law was passed that goods not manufactured 
in England should be so marked. It was aimed 
against Germany, but the legend " Made in Ger- 
many " had soon a different meaning from the 
one the law makers had expected it would have. 
But whenever the German fleet was discussed in 
England it was in the sense of the remarks which 
Lord Palmerston addressed to the Germans 
through his press in 1861, when the Schleswig- 
Holstein question became acute; plow your 
fields, sail with your clouds, build your castles 
in Spain, for you have never had the genius of 
crossing the oceans or sailing the seas or even 
your inland waters ! 

What would not England give today if she 
could annul her cession of Heligoland to Ger- 
many! Did our government desire the posses- 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 103 

sion of Heligoland as long ago as the time when 
the Zanzibar treaty was made, because our re- 
sponsible statesmen foresaw our future devel- 
opment ? One would be glad to answer this ques- 
tion with yes. But as a matter of fact the pur- 
chase of Heligoland had been more than once 
suggested to England, but without avail, by 
Bismarck himself during the preceding decades. 
The realization, however, of the economic 
changes in Germany and its consequently al- 
tered political status, did not come either ito 
ourselves or to the English people earlier than 
during the decade intervening between the Zan- 
zibar-Heligoland treaty of 1890 and the navy 
law of 1900. When the plans for our navy were 
proposed and the reasons for its increase devel- 
oped before the people, public opinion was gen- 
erally able to follow the discussion. The great- 
est credit for having instructed the nation on 
the transoceanic matters vitally affecting its in- 
terests belongs to the navy department. The 
material which this department placed before the 
people in pamphlets, lectures, newspaper arti- 
cles, books, and, finally, in the discussions in par- 
liament, represents one of the grandest forces 
of instruction ever wielded in any cause. 
Neither before nor after the introduction of the 
navy law by Admiral von Tirpitz has there been 
as close a touch between the government and 
the people as existed at that time. The review 
of the huge figures, which represented the 
growth of our interests abroad, was very im- 
pressive, and the necessity of protecting them 
with a large fleet was conclusively proved. 



104 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

Everything that is famiHar to us today: the 
danger for Germany of a naval blockade, the 
destruction of our home-commerce if one de- 
prives us of our foreign markets, all this was 
then for the first time elucidated -— and how 
much smaller were those figures and values 
twelve years ago than they are today. 

The notion that we can continue to live con- 
tent with defending and keeping what we have 
already attained, gave place, at least in the case 
of the intelligent people, to the conviction that 
Germany would face a decision concerning its 
future of even greater moment than it had been 
called upon to meet during the periods of re- 
construction from Koniggratz to Versailles. 
People saw visions of a Germany still more 
firmly rooted in the commerce of the world, and 
drawing from it its sustenance in increased meas- 
ure ; a Germany which one day would be met by 
England in her panoply with the threat: I bid 
you stop! that I may take my place! 

In England people like to ignore the possi- 
bility of Germany's commerce growing to men- 
acing proportions. For this reason, we are told, 
a big navy is superfluous for Germany unless 
she intends to fight England with it. If Ger- 
many had no other intentions than to protect 
her commerce with her fleet, then the expenses 
which it incurred for her fleet were altogether 
unnecessary, because nobody, and England least 
of all, was thinking of endangering the German 
trade. The first lord of the admiralty, Winston 
Churchill, referred to the English and German 
navies in a speech in Glasgow on February 9, 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 105 

1912, as follows: "We have no thoughts and 
we have never had any thoughts of aggression 
— and we attribute no such thoughts to other 
Great Powers. There is, however, this differ- 
ence between the British naval power, and the 
naval power of the great and friendly Empire 
of Germany. The British Navy is to us a neces- 
sity, and from some points of view the German 
Navy is to them more in the nature of a luxury. 
Our naval power involves British existence. It 
is existence to us, it is expansion to them. We 
cannot menace the peace of a single continental 
hamlet nor do we wish to do so no matter how 
great and supreme our Navy may become. But 
on the other hand, the whole fortunes of our 
race and Empire, the whole treasure accumu- 
lated during so many centuries of sacrifice and 
achievement would perish and be swept away 
if our naval supremacy were to be impaired. It 
is the British Navy which makes Great Britain 
a Great Power. But Germany was a Great 
Power, respected and honored all over the 
world before she had a single ship. Those facts 
ought to be clearly stated because there is no 
doubt that there is a disposition in some quar- 
ters to suppose that Great Britain and Germany 
are on terms of equality so far as naval risks 
are concerned. Such a supposition is utterly 
untrue. The government is resolved to main- 
tain the naval supremacy which this country 
enjoys." Thus spoke the English present first 
lord of the admiralty. But once there was an- 
other leader of the English navy, George Monck, 
Duke of Albemarle, Cromwell's lieutenant 



106 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

against Holland. When it seemed desirable to 
hunt up another reason or excuse for an attack 
on Holland, Monck said : " What does this or 
that reason matter? What we need is a slice 
of the commerce which the Dutch now have." 

A few years later Charles H wrote to Louis 
XIV, when the two nations were contemplating 
an alliance against Holland, that there were 
some serious obstacles to an agreement, the chief 
of which were " the present great pains of 
France to create commerce and to be a naval 
power of consequence. This is for us, who can 
be great only by our commerce and our navy, 
so serious a cause of suspicion, that every step 
which France is taking in this direction, of 
necessity must rekindle the jealousies of the two 
nations." A century later, when the seven years' 
naval war between England and France was 
ended, Pitt, the English minister, said that 
France was especially dangerous to England as 
a naval and commercial power and that the chief 
English successes were the damage done to 
France along these lines. He also added his 
regrets that France had been given the oppor- 
tunity of rebuilding her navy. 

In view of these historical witnesses concern- 
ing the real views of English statesmen, kings, 
and admirals as regards nations who claim an 
important share of the commerce of the world, 
and the right to protect it with their own navy, 
would it not be somewhat risky, if we placed 
entire confidence in the assurances coming from 
England today that we could rely even without 
a fleet on the pacific intentions of England and 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 107 

be assured of a safe competition in the commerce 
of the world? All due respect to Mr. Churchill's 
word as the expression of his personal opinion! 
But all too often a different tune has sounded 
from England, emanating, moreover, from the 
highest quarters. Who finally can guarantee 
that the other political party which at present is 
not guiding the destinies of the country, wiU not 
sing a different tune when it comes to power? 
Even the present Liberal Lord of the admiralty 
will hardly look upon the campaign speeches of 
the leader of the Conservatives during the re- 
cent campaign on the " German danger " as 
calculated to quiet Germany. 

On the contrary, the true attitude of England 
toward our navy and commerce is revealed by 
such comments as were contained in the famous 
article in the Saturday Review of September, 
1897, which made a great stir in England and 
the whole world, and frankly stated that Eng- 
land's prosperity could only be saved if Ger- 
many were destroyed. " England," the article 
says in part, " with her long history of success- 
ful aggression, with her marvelous conviction 
that in pursuing her own interests she is spread- 
ing light among nations dwelling in darkness, 
and Germany, bone of the same bone, blood of 
the same blood, with a lesser will-force, but 
perhaps with a keener intelligence, compete in 
every corner of the globe. In the Transvaal, at 
the Cape, in Central Africa, in India and the 
East, in the islands of the Southern Sea, and 
in the far Northwest, wherever — and where 
has it not? — the flag has followed the Bible, 



108 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

and trade has followed the flag, there the Ger- 
man bagman is struggling with the English 
pedlar. Is there a mine to exploit, a railway to 
build, a native to convert from breadfruit to 
tinned meat, from temperance to trade gin, the 
German and the Englishman are struggling to 
be first. A million petty disputes build up the 
greatest cause of war the world has ever seen. 
// Germany were extinguished tomorrow, the 
day after tomorrow, there is not an Englishman 
in the world who would not he richer. Nations 
have fought for years over a city or a right of 
succession. Must they not fight for two hun- 
dred million pounds of commerce ? " 

The article then goes on to say that a most 
tangible conflict of interests existed between 
England and Germany, and that England, more- 
over, was the only great power which could 
make war on Germany without running an 
enormous risk, and even with an undoubted 
prospect of success. " Her partners in the 
Triple Alliance would be useless against Eng- 
land; Austria because she could do nothing; 
Italy because she dare not lay herself open to 
an attack by France. The growth of Germany's 
fleet has done no more than to make the blow 
of England fall on her more heavily. A few 
days, and the ships would be at the bottom, or 
in convoy to English ports ; Hamburg and 
Bremen, the Kiel Canal and the Baltic ports 
would lie under the guns of England, waiting 
until the indemnity were settled. Our work 
over, we need not even be at the pains to alter 
Bismarck's words to Ferry and to say to France 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 109 

and Russia, ' Seek some compensation. Take 
inside Germany whatever you like. You can 
have it.' " 

Germaniam esse delendam! 
Down with Germany! 

Thus the article concludes, and we know very 
well that it does not reflect the feelings of the 
whole of England, but nevertheless of a con- 
siderable portion of the English nation. 

A few years ago a former colleague of Win- 
ston Churchill, Mr. Arthur Lee, civil lord of 
the admiralty, that is to say, an active member 
of the English government, expressed himself 
even more clearly when he said in a public 
speech on February 3, 1905, that the center of 
the naval power in Europe had shifted, and that 
England would have to look with care, although 
not with anxiety, to the North Sea rather than 
to the Mediterranean. If the English navy 
should be thus redistributed and war should 
come, then England could strike the first blow 
before the other party had time to read in the 
newspapers that war had been declared. 

Late in the fall of 1904 after the misunder- 
standing near the Doggerbank between the Rus- 
sian fleet on its way to Asia and the fishermen 
from Hull, the opinion was expressed in Eng- 
land that Germany had warned Russia of a pos- 
sible attack by Japanese torpedo boats, and at 
the same time had placed her own ships in readi- 
ness against England. In this connection the 
semi-official Army and Navy Gazette remarked 
that it was intolerable that England should be 
forced solely by the existence of the German 



110 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

fleet to take precautions which otherwise would 
not be necessary. " Before now we have had 
to wipe out of existence a fleet which we had 
reason to beheve might be used as a weapon to 
our hurt. There are not wanting those both in 
this country and on the Continent who regard 
the German fleet as the one and only menace to 
the preservation of peace in Europe. This may 
or may not be the case. We are content to point 
out that the present moment is particularly op- 
portune for asking that this fleet should not be 
further increased." One of the most influential 
English papers, the Daily Chronicle, referred 
to this proposal and the speech of the lord of 
the admiralty, Mr. Lee, by saying that we should 
have peace in Europe for sixty years if the 
German navy had been destroyed in October, 
1904; and that the words of Mr. Lee — pro- 
vided they had the sanction of the cabinet — 
were wise, for they contained a pacific declara- 
tion of the immutable intentions of the mistress 
of the sea. 

Such depositions do not well agree with the 
assertion of Mr. Churchill that England neither 
had nor ever had had aggressive intentions 
against Germany. And what does he mean by 
England? Is it the responsible office holders 
of the party which happens to have the majority 
in parliament? Or the sum-total of the English 
nation? Or the preponderating part of public 
opinion in England? These are all forces which 
may change, under certain conditions, more 
speedily than anybody in Germany can foresee. 
If it is difficult, according to the well-known 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 111 

dictum of Bismarck, to enter into a binding 
political contract with England, because the Eng- 
lish constitution does not permit treaties of 
specified durations, it is even less possible to rely 
on the expressions of momentary opinions either 
by the press or even by persons in responsible 
positions. We all know that we were very near 
a. war with England during the summer and 
early fall of 191 1. We also know that on Sep- 
tember 18, 191 1, the English fleet in the North 
Sea and the canal was ready for action, that a 
simultaneous attack against Kiautschou and our 
possessions in the South Sea was being pre- 
pared, and that negotiations with France were 
under way for her assistance in a war on land. 
We know that a year earlier English public 
opinion and policy had strenuou^y objected to 
the fortification of the mouth of the Schelde. 
Why? Because this would have lessened the 
opportunity of sending English troops through 
the Schelde to unite with the French army in a 
war on Germany. It is, therefore, impossible 
to submit, with tied hands, to the kind intentions 
of the English, and to leave to them the sole 
control of the seas. It is equally impossible to 
place one's trust in the one-sided assurances of 
English statesmen who say that they had not 
intended to attack us, when not only the quan- 
tity but also the weight of contrary English 
statements compel us to believe that the denial 
in this case is probably only intended to be an 
excuse and is meant for the less informed gen- 
eral public. 

Ever since 1897, when the first solitary cries 



112 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

for a war with Germany gradually began to 
swell into a mighty chorus, down to the mobi- 
lization and negotiation with France in 191 1, 
there have been many orators who have uttered 
the famous word of Cato against Carthage in 
its appropriate variation : Ceteriim censeo, Ger- 
maniam esse delendam (For the rest I hold 
that Germany must be destroyed). "If the 
German fleet were destroyed, the peace of Eu- 
rope would be secure for two generations. Eng- 
land and France, or England and the United 
States, or all three would vouch for the freedom 
of the sea, and prevent the construction of new 
ships, which are dangerous weapons in the hands 
of ambitious powers with a growing population 
and without colonies." These words from an 
influential English organ in the critical fall of 
1904, after the Russian mistake in the North 
Sea, represent the true feeling of a considerable 
part of English public opinion. They deserve 
our attention fully as much as the pacific utter- 
ances of individuals. It is not our intention to 
impugn the sincerity and the honest desire of 
those English friends of peace, who like our- 
selves are striving to avoid an armed encounter 
of the two nations, but not one of these esti- 
mable gentlemen can guarantee to us that in 
the decisive moment his voice will win over that 
of the anti-German party which is resolved to 
secure the welfare of England according to the 
principles of Admiral Monck, William Pitt, 
Palmerston or the lord of the admiralty Mr. 
Arthur Lee. Where were the advocates of 
peace, when in September, 191 1, the English 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 113 

battleships and cruisers and torpedo boats and 
submarines lay at anchor waiting the order to 
steam forth into the North Sea to attack the 
naval power, the shore fortifications and the 
commercial cities of Germany? Who can know 
what motives in the last minute were counsel- 
Hng peace? Nobody in Germany knew of the 
danger which was threatening us, and it is un- 
likely that in England the war party made con- 
fidants of the advocates of peace, the Anglican 
Church dignitaries, or the men who are working 
for a peaceful understanding with Germany, 
and who are reproaching us now for our sus- 
picion. 

When the first insignificant attempts were 
made in Germany to create a navy, and a certain 
grudge began to stir in England, Prince Bis- 
marck declared in the Reichstag, January lo, 
1885 : " It is not surprising that England in her 
consciousness that ' Britannia rules the waves ' 
looks up with wonder at seeing her landlubber 
cousins — for thus she thinks of us — suddenly 
go to sea. The highest influential circles of 
England, however, do not share this feeling, and 
find it difficult to moderate in time the expression 
of this surprise in their subjects." No German 
chancellor today could speak thus of the relation 
between the influential and- the non-influential 
circles in England. 

We do not take it at all amiss that England's 
pride and consciousness of mastery revolts at 
the imputation that she should hereafter recog- 
nize the interests of another nation as equal to 
her own, not only in Europe but also in the trans- 



114 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

oceanic world. Nobody in the world has the 
right to blame a great and sovereign nation if 
it prefers, under these conditions, to fight rather 
than to submit. It is true, as Mr. Churchill said, 
that all possessions of the English race are en- 
dangered as soon as her power on the seas is 
at stake. But we can reply with exactly the same 
right : Not only our goods and wealth, but also 
our national existence and the future of our 
national idea in the world are at stake, when 
our defences by land and by sea are insufficient 
to make our opponents look on an attack upon 
us as too great a risk. It does not occur to us 
to deny the superiority of the English fleet, and 
if the English people wish very much to use the 
word supremacy rather than superiority, they 
are welcome to do so. But when they interpret 
their " supremacy " to mean that our interests 
shall yield to theirs everywhere in the world they 
will compel us to fight with them for our future, 
that is to say, our national existence. If they 
wish to prescribe to us how far we may go in 
the world to spread our ideas, we should be fools 
and cowards if we were to acknowledge this 
foreign command as binding without recourse 
to arms. 

If fate has decreed that we shall not reach 
our goal of being a world nation, then this deci- 
sion should not rest with the proclamation of 
English supremacy but with the thundering 
voice of the guns. No greater harm can come 
to us if we are conquered hy the English than 
if we voluntarily renounce our claim of equality 
with them. 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 115 

The same necessity which drove England 
along the road of naval development has deter- 
mined our course. We have seen how every 
year a larger part of our population has been 
dependent for its daily bread on a growing share 
in the markets of the world. Germany must be 
able to stand the competition of all the other na- 
tions, notably England, and it has shown its abil- 
ity to do so. The nation which possessed not 
only a superior navy but one so absolutely the 
master of our own that it could influence our 
policy by the mere threat of a naval war, would 
have a tremendous power over us. The more 
we come to be a people which lives by its share 
in the markets of the world, the more we must 
take care that we are not suddenly pressed 
aside or driven away from it by a stronger na- 
tion. 

In spite of this, good relations between Ger- 
many and England are not impossible, and 
should, therefore, be eagerly sought. They are 
more desirable for us and for them than any- 
thing else. They can, however, only be achieved 
on the basis of a formal and absolute equality. 
This means that the vital interests of one nation 
must be respected by the other. The American 
secretary of the navy, Mr. Morton, stated on 
November i8, 1904, that he was in favor of a 
fleet which was so strong that no other nation 
would dare to risk an encounter with it. Accord- 
ing to his opinion the American navy should be 
inferior to none. Half a year later President 
Roosevelt declared that a first class fleet capable 
of meeting any hostile combination was the best 



116 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

and cheapest guaranty of peace; and that the 
person who had not noticed this in the history 
of all the people in recent years must be blind. 
Even more concise was the question, asked by 
an American writer on naval matters, Commo- 
dore Fisk, in his book on the American naval 
policy (1905): "Why should a country like 
England, which is not larger than the United 
States, have need of the larger navy? " No such 
word has ever been uttered from our side con- 
cerning the relation of the German navy to that 
of England. 

The English people say, to be sure, that it was 
we and not the Americans who wished to attack 
them. This assertion can be caused by only two 
motives, either conscious hypocrisy, hunting for 
an excuse to attack us with a semblance of right, 
or insufficient political deliberation. The latter 
is probably the weightier cause. Either, we 
attack England and are beaten, then a national 
catastrophe is staring us in the face, or, the 
highly improbable and inconceivable happens, 
and we actually conquer the English fleet, al- 
though ours is only half as big, and are proceed- 
ing to force on England a disadvantageous 
peace. At that moment an European coalition 
against us is with absolute certainty an accom- 
plished fact, destined to deprive us of the prize 
of victory. Not only France and Russia, but 
also our ally Austria-Hungary together with 
Italy and all the minor States could do nothing 
less than to unite against us as soon as a decisive 
German victory over England was impending, 
and before we assumed the dictatorship of Eu- 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 117 

rope. They would have to do it for the sake 
of their own future. 

To understand this, one needs only an ele- 
mentary political knowledge. If England never- 
theless makes official use of the notion that Ger- 
many might attack her, we may forgive the man 
on the street and the sensational press their 
ignorance of the political ABC. But if politi- 
cians of note and statesmen who are guiding the 
affairs of the nation, or after a change of par- 
liamentary majorities may be called to such of- 
fices, express such ideas, they must not be aston- 
ished if we begin to suspect that England is 
not so much afraid of an attack by us, as that 
she desires to make preparations for an attack 
on us. 

No German politician or statesman, no Ger- 
man paper or intelligent man in Germany has 
ever hinted or expressed the thought that we 
should build as large a navy as the English or 
even as large as that part of the English navy 
which is kept in home waters. What we need, 
and what we must have at all hazards, with or 
without the good will of England, is a navy 
strong enough to endanger England's superior 
position on the sea, if she should attack us, even 
if the immediate outcome should be advanta- 
geous to her. We must have so many ships that 
the losses which England will sustain in putting 
us down will deprive her of her naval superiority 
over the other intact navies of the world. No 
English policy can risk this. Let the English 
build as many ships as they think necessary for 
their safety but let them count with this fact 



118 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

once and for all, that we shall say: We do not 
care how many ships you build, we shall and 
must build so many that it will be too dangerous 
for you to run the risk of an attack on us. From 
the German point of view this is so clearly a 
defensive policy that it is altogether impossible 
to impute to it aggressive tendencies. It gives 
to England what is hers and cedes to Germany 
her own. If the English are not content, pre- 
ferring to maintain their absolute " supremacy " 
even for an attack, they show that they will not 
acknowledge our political and national equality 
in the world. But then it is they, and not we, 
who are constantly turning the screw of in- 
creased armaments. Financially we shall be able 
for a long while yet to raise the means for bat- 
tleships, cruisers, and whatever else is necessary 
for a naval war. The sacrifices which Prussia 
and other States and people have made in crit- 
ical times are an entirely different thing from 
the taxes which even in an extreme case may 
be required of us. If, nevertheless, the day 
should come when not our financial ability but 
our national readiness to make sacrifices gives 
out, and the majority of the German people pre- 
fer to save money in its defences rather than 
to advance the German idea in the world, well, 
then we shall have deserved no better fate than 
that the English shoot us down and proclaim 
to the people of Europe : Help yourselves ! Take 
your compensation from Germany wherever you 
wish ! 

We Germans know that nature herself com- 
pels us, whether or no we like it, to push the 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 119 

roots and fibers of our economic life ever deeper 
into the world abroad. In doing this we are 
met by the suspicion, jealousy, hostility, and the 
special policies of other mighty people. If until 
now an outbreak of hostilities has been pre- 
vented, and often at the last moment, it is no- 
where written that this will always be so. Under 
these conditions how can we justify any calcula- 
tions as to how much less strong we should keep 
our defences, of our own free will? Is there 
any other reason than our strength why our 
opponents s.hould spare us? Will England, 
France, and Russia hesitate to use their superior- 
ity as soon as they think it is suMcient to worst us 
and our friends? What shall keep them from 
it? Would the desired revenge for 1870 restrain 
the French? Or their anxiety over our com- 
merce and navy restrain the English ? Or would 
the Russians hesitate because of their antipathy 
against us, their anger at our faithful support 
of our ally, Austria-Hungary, or because they 
need a thorough reparation for their defeats in 
East Asia? The balance between desire and 
hesitation will be kept in the camp of our oppo- 
nents only while we are strong. When we are 
no longer strong, or at least no longer seem to 
be so, then the others will be impelled as by an 
elemental force to remove from their midst an 
inconvenient nation. This is the true state of 
affairs, and yet there are patriotic Germans who 
deliberate whether it would not be better to save 
millions, and so risk thousands of millions and 
even the very future of the German idea in the 
world ! 



120 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

Everything that has been said thus far may- 
be summed up by repeating, that as we are 
situated today nobody, no individual power nor 
probable combination of powers, can do us any 
harm except in conjunction with England. In 
saying this we assume that our alliance with 
Austria-Hungary will continue as firm as it has 
been in the past. The correctness of this as- 
sumption is based on the fact that the German- 
Austrian protection is mutual. We are easily 
a match for France alone, and a Franco-Russian 
combination will automatically put the Austro- 
Hungarian army into action. Italy belongs 
nominally to the Triple Alliance, hut it is better 
not to speculate on her movements, because her 
public opinion is uncertain, and her dynasty not 
suificiently secure to he able to insist on carrying 
out a treaty in the face of a hostile public opin- 
ion. From the present state of European pol- 
itics, therefore, it follows of necessity that who- 
ever harbors plans against Germany must seek 
an understanding with England. England, on 
the other hand, has systematically endeavored 
to gather into her camp whatever forces are 
inimical to our interests. If we are strong 
enough to keep England from attacking us by 
sea, then we need not trouble about anything 
else. The only means, however, of accomplish- 
ing this, is a strong navy. If it suffices to keep 
Ensrland at bay, this very fact secures the peace 
of Europe. We cannot and we must not deviate 
from this naval policy, which depends entirely 
on the English naval program. In this con- 
nection it was very fortunate for us that the 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 121 

experiences of the naval encounters between 
Russia and Japan induced England to adopt the 
Dreadnought type of battleships. This type 
greatly depreciated all the older ships in any 
navy, and while it would have been a hopeless 
task for us, in the pre-Dreadnought period to 
catch up even in a remote way with the tremen- 
dous superiority of the English navy, the Dread- 
noughts gave a new start on equal terms to all 
nations. To their misfortune, the English people 
thought that they would preserve the absolute 
superiority in the construction of huge modern 
battleships for a considerable length of time. 
But in this they were mistaken, for owing to 
the introduction of the Dreadnought type we 
have caught up with them in the last six years 
to an extent which formerly would have ap- 
peared to be a fantastic improbability. Our 
relation to them in Dreadnought strength is 
already slightly better than i : 2, and if the defi- 
nitely adopted scheme of our naval construction 
did not happen to contemplate a decrease of new 
ships in the next few years, this proportion 
would for the present be maintained. 

Our second factor of safety lies in fostering 
our good relations with Turkey. The financial 
and general economic strengthening of the Turk- 
ish Empire, the construction of railways, and, 
above everything else, a large, well armed, and 
ready Turkish army, these would weigh so dis- 
tinctly in our favor, if our opponents should 
break the peace, that the progress of Turkey 
must be a subject of great interest for us. If 
our policy, nevertheless, was not able to keep 



122 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

Italy from her attack on Tripolis and to obviate 
the consequent serious complications for Turkey 
in her affairs both at home and abroad, it shows 
unfortunately that a nominally allied power like 
Italy does not believe that German interests 
impose upon her any obligatory considerations. 
Our present political situation is doubtless 
subject to the interpretation that we are no 
longer so respected as we were in Bismarck's 
time, and many people express their patriotic 
fear that we are no longer successful in any- 
thing. This much is correct, that our opponents 
at present are in a position to prescribe for us 
to a certain extent what we shall do, unless we 
should be willing to break all existing political 
knots by a great war. Such a war, however, 
would be so great a risk to what we have achieved 
and still may achieve that we cannot decide on 
it, unless the opposing parties plan something 
'which will either infringe our honor or imperil 
our national existence — or by an attack on us 
will relieve us of the trouble of making a decision 
at all. If this does not happen, our only possible 
policy toward England and the powers in her 
train is to be always armed to the full extent 
of our ability, and to declare at the same time 
our inviolable readiness to have peace and a loyal 
understanding with our opponents, provided 
they will give us a pledge that such an under- 
standing will be sincere and lasting. 



CHAPTER IX 

MILITARISM 

Germany is often called the home of militarism ; 
and in spite of her contributions to civilization 
many have taken sides against her in the Great 
War, because they believe that a defeat of the 
German army will prove to be a victory for anti- 
militarism, throughout the world. Germany's 
friends are convinced that this will not be the 
case, because Germany is not the home of mili- 
tarism, either as regards the military spirit of 
her people, or the efforts of the government to 
have the most expensive military machinery at 
its disposal. 

These facts are so contrary to the general un- 
derstanding that one is hardly astonished to have 
their accuracy challenged. No conclusions can 
be drawn from the attitude of the people since 
the war, because ranks are always serried when 
foreign danger threatens, and the French and 
English are as determined as the Germans to 
defend their honor and their country. But be- 
fore the war? Nobody who really knew the 
country then could have called the Germans 



124 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

belligerent or eager for war. As has been said 
above, the Germans were commercially aggres- 
sive, branching out all over the world. They 
were building up one trade here, another there, 
and trying to win the confidence of the people 
everywhere. Some of the biggest enterprises 
were contemplating contracts to be made for a 
number of years, while others, such as the im- 
portation of metal ores from South America 
necessitated the investment of enormous sums in 
an ore-carrying fleet. Even the smaller enter- 
prises had to reckon with a settled future, for a 
first assignment of goods is often attended by 
great expenditures of advertising and other 
overhead charges. Only after the channels of 
distribution have been prepared are profits as- 
sured. No nation, therefore, will enter on an 
aggressive commercial career, as long as it is 
determined to bring about a war for its own 
aggrandisement. 

As regards Germany, it will probably not be 
denied that the majority of her people were fol- 
lowing the peaceful paths of commerce and in- 
dustry, and of agriculture, but it is believed that 
her army was so big, and had grown so strong 
that its warlike spirit prevailed and set at naught 
the wishes of the great majority. Anybody who 
will take the trouble of looking through the list 
of names of officers of the German army, and 



MILITARISM 125 

will trace their family (Connections, will at once 
be faced by a fact which tends to disprove this 
theory. In many cases the great army leaders 
are brothers or fathers of the men who stand 
high in the commercial world. The writer 
^knows of his own experience that one of the 
cavalry generals prominently mentioned in con- 
nection with the German right wing in the battle 
of the Aisne is the owner of one of the largest 
and oldest establishments, if not the oldest busi- 
ness, in the city of Danzig. The brother of this 
general was a farmer, and all his relatives on his 
mother's side are in business. 

There is not such a thing in Germany as a 
military clique, out of sympathy with and op- 
posed to the great masses of the people. Nor 
could there be, because the future lay bright 
before the Germans for just so long as they 
could retain peace. Those who doubt this asser- 
tion should ask themselves which European 
nation had been the undoubted gainer during the 
past forty years? In population Germany had 
grown to be fifty per cent, larger than the United 
Kingdom, and about seventy-five per cent, larger 
than France. In commerce it had advanced 
from almost the last place among the big nations 
to the second place, easily outstripping France 
and even forging ahead of the United States in 
bulk of imports and exports, although the United 



126 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

States has a world monopoly in cotton. In rate 
of progress Germany excelled the United King- 
dom at the ratio of more than two to one, ac- 
cording to the figures of the Journal of the Royal 
Statistical Society (London, July, 19 14, pp. 788- 
789), for the German rate of increase from 1888 
to 19 1 2 was 204 per cent, while the rate of the 
United Kingdom was only 100.7 P^'" cent. In 
recent years Germany took three steps in advance 
to every two taken by the United Kingdom. 
Another twenty years of honorable peace, and 
Germany would have stood in the first rank of 
the European nations, provided the rate of prog- 
ress of the past decade could have been main- 
tained. 

These figures, or at least their substance, were 
well-known in Germany; and the intensity of 
a hopeful outlook on the future was comparable 
only to the richly pulsating life in the United 
States. Germany and America were the two 
countries of western civilization where interest 
and pride in a constantly changing present and 
the sure promise of an even richer future kept 
the people from being hypnotized by past griev- 
ances or imaginary wrongs. Great Britain rarely 
forgot her sorrow at seeing her absolute control 
of the markets of the world slip from her grasp, 
while France, whose population stood still, could 
not take her eyes from Strassburg and " re- 



MILITARISM 127 

venge." " If one of our older generation," says 
Paul Rohrbach, " who was in France in 1870 or 
'71, revisits today the cities which he knew then, 
he stands aghast before the fact that time seems 
to have stood still there. The same houses and 
streets and squares, the same city confines as fifty 
years ago ! In Germany, where there is an enor- 
mous increase of all large and fairly large cities, 
where there is a rapid development of all com- 
munications, and an extraordinary increase of 
the fortunes of men, we can hardly imagine such 
a state of affairs," 

It is because the German people were so ex- 
traordinarily successful in peace that they had 
become forgetful, in the words of the much 
quoted General von Bernhardi — although these 
particular words are rarely quoted — forgetful 
of their military abilities and had become too 
peaceful for their own safety. It was not thus 
in France, where thoughts of a war with Ger- 
many made the hearts beat faster, and where, in 
spite of all assurances of peaceful intentions, an 
intense love of military prowess had survived. 
These were the strong emotions which gave sta- 
bility to a not overstrong government and which 
consoled the country for the standstill to which 
its own small family and not-more-than-two- 
children average had condemned it 

Russia, of course, is a far more military State 



128 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

than Germany, nor is it to be assumed that Ger- 
many's defeat would quench the mihtary spirit 
of the newer States such as Servia, Bulgaria and 
Greece, not to mention Japan. 

In so far, therefore, as the spirit of the people 
is concerned, Germany is surely not the home of 
militarism, especially not if militarism connotes 
the desire of attacking other people. 

Militarism, however, has another meaning in 
the minds of people, for it may refer to the tre- 
mendous risk which lurks in the mere existence 
of a strong fighting machine. This risk, it is be- 
lieved, is greatly increased when the constitution 
of the country where it is found, places the arbi- 
trary control over it in the hands of one man. 
The German army, it is said, is the best army in 
the world, and the German Emperor has absolute 
control over it. He even has the right to declare 
war, if " an attack on the frontiers or the coast 
of the Empire has been made ", although under 
all other circumstances he needs the consent of 
the Federation. 

It may readily be agreed that this is a defect 
of the German constitution, and that nothing is 
gained thereby. In the present war the Emperor 
had not only the unanimous consent of the Coun- 
cil of the Federation (the Bundesrat) but also 
of the Reichstag. It is not generally known that 
the Emperor took no steps, from the moment the 



MILITARISM 129 

situation began to look critical, except in consul- 
tation with the leaders of all the parties of the 
Reichstag, and with the governments of all the 
federated States. Nothing, therefore, would 
have been altered, if the constitution had made 
the declaration of war the duty of the elected 
representatives of the German people instead of 
entrusting it jointly to the Emperor and the 
Council of the Federated States. The German 
people, knowing William II, never doubted that 
this would be his course, while strangers, who 
knew only the wording of the constitution and 
were less familiar with the character of the 
Emperor and the temper of the German people, 
are excusable if they assumed that the Emperor 
acted with an arbitrariness for which the con- 
stitution seemed to offer an excuse. 

As a matter of fact, it is unbelievable to any 
German that the Emperor, even if he were not 
as peace-loving as William II is, would commit 
them to a war against their wishes. This is as 
unbelievable to them as it would be to Americans 
that their president as commander-in-chief of the 
army and navy should wilfully direct the move- 
ments of the American forces so that war ensued 
against the wishes of the people. 

This disposes, to a certain extent, of the dan- 
ger to the peace of the world lurking in the Ger- 
man constitution, but it still leaves the oppor- 



130 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

tunity for claiming that Germany is the home of 
militarism because she has the largest army in 
the world in proportion to her size. 

In this connection it is interesting to compare 
the actual figures, and to see how much the sev- 
eral big nations of the world have been in the 
habit of paying for their " national defences." 
The complete figures of all the countries for the 
past two years are not yet available. They are 
larger in every instance than the latest figures 
given below. But since the actual increase in the 
German figures is less than the increase in the 
French and British, and especially the Russian 
figures, the argument of the present investigation 
will not be affected. To guard against any inac- 
curacy, the German figures are given as they 
were published in million marks, and to simplify 
the comparison the other figures are reduced to 
million marks. The approximate value of a 
mark is almost twenty-four cents, or for rough 
calculation one-fourth of a dollar. 

1. Germany expended, — 

1902 1911 

For the Anny 670,000,000 marks 810,000,000 marks 

For the Navy 205,000,000 " 450,000,000 " 

Together 875,000,000 " 1,260,000,000 " 

Figured per capita of the population this was 
in 1902 ig marks and in 191 1 ip 1-5 marks. 

2. The United Kingdom expended, — 



MILITARISM 131 

1902 1911 

For the Army 585,000,000 marks 547,000,000 marks 

For the Navy 633,000,000 " 906,000,000 " 

Together 1,218,000,000 " 1,453,000,000 " 

Figured per capita of the population this was 
in 1902 2^ marks and in 191 1 j^ marks, or about 
60 per cent, more than Germany. 

3. France expended, — 

1902 1911 

For the Army 584,000,000 marks 718,000,000 marks 

For the Navy 243,000,000 " 333,000,000 " 

Together 827,000,000 " 1,051,000,000 " 

Figured per capita of the population this was 
in 1902 21 marks, and in 191 1 26 1-2 marks, or 
about 38 per cent, more than Germany. 

4. The United States expended, — 

1902 191 I 

For the Army 511,000,000 marks 559,000,000 marks 

For the Navy 349,000,000 " 535,000,000 " 

Together 860,000,000 " 1,066,000,000 " 

Figured per capita of the population this was 
in 191 1 almost 12 marks, or only 62 1-2 per cent, 
of the German expenditures. 

5. Russia expended, — 

1902 1911 

For the Army 741,000,000 marks 1,048,000,000 marks 

For the Navy 217,000,000 " 238,000.000 " 

Together 958,000,000 " 1,286,000,000 " 



132 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

Figured per capita of the population this was 
in 1902 about 7 marks and in 191 1 8 1-2 marks. 

Of these five nations, therefore, the United 
Kingdom spent most on her army and navy. 
Russia came next, then follov^ed in this order, 
Germany, the United States and France. Reck- 
oned, however, per capita of the population, the 
United Kingdom and France are far in advance 
of Germany, while the United States and Russia 
are at the bottom of the list. 

But to read the true value of these statistics 
one should also investigate the increase of wealth 
per capita of the population, and then it will be 
seen that the 19 1-5 marks per capita paid in Ger- 
many in 191 1 weighed less heavily on the people 
than the 15 marks in 1902, for their average 
wealth had grown enormously. If on the other 
hand the average wealth in Russia is considered, 
the 8 1-2 marks per capita she paid in 191 1 is 
much greater than the 19 1-5 marks paid by 
Germany. 

It appears, therefore, that also from the point 
of actual expenditure Germany cannot be called 
the exclusive home of militarism. This would 
be even clearer if the most recent figures were 
available, for, as was said above, France increased 
within the last years the length of service of her 
soldiers from two to three years and enlisted in 
her army practically every young man who was 



MILITARISM 133 

not too obviously incapacitated. This, it has 
been claimed, was on her part a move to which 
the size of the German army had compelled her. 
But no flight of the imagination of even the most 
anti-German observer has been able to detect on 
the part of Germany any intention of attacking 
France. If France had not v/ished to assist 
Russia, or rather to fight Germany when the 
latter was partly engaged by Russia, there need 
not have been a French-German war. Germany 
surely did not want anything of France, while 
France had set her heart on Alsace-Lorraine. 

The tremendous expenditures for the British 
army will probably be a distinct surprise to the 
Americans, many of whom have been thinking 
only of the British navy. Whether they agree 
with Germany or not they will appreciate the 
humor of the situation as it appears to the Ger- 
mans, who are told that the British are fighting 
to put down militarism, when they are actually 
paying sixty per cent, per capita more for their 
armaments than Germany. 

The humor of the situation even grows when 
the British attitude is taken into consideration. 
In a friendly discussion with an American of 
English descent the author was told that the suc- 
cess of the allies would result in universal dis- 
armament by the establishment of an interna- 
tional police. When he inquired how, in view of 



134 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

the general disarmament, the decrees of this 
court would be enforced, he was told : " Oh, well, 
the British navy will naturally form an important 
part of this police." 

From these various points of view, therefore, 
Germany pleads " not guilty " to the charge of 
being the home of militarism. But if we strip 
militarism of its unpleasant connotations of ab- 
solutism and vicious aggressiveness, and think of 
it in its more literal meaning as having to do 
with the militia, the citizen-army of a State, then 
Germany is willing to acknowledge that she has 
endeavored to build up the best citizen-army for 
defence her conditions permitted. Of this she is 
not ashamed, nor does she fear that America, the 
home of men ready to die for freedom, will 
blame her when everything is understood. 

Many British writers and speakers are quoting 
disconnected sentences from the book of a Ger- 
man fire-eater to prove that the Germans as such 
are like him. There are, however, similar books 
presenting the bellicose intentions of the British 
nation, notably one dedicated in 19 12 to Field- 
Marshal Lord Roberts, and so far as the writer 
knows, never repudiated either by him or any 
other British soldier or statesman. The quota- 
tions from this book, printed as Appendix B, 
should convince the reader that no country has 
a monopoly of fire-eaters, and that if militarism 



MILITARISM 135 

is rampant in Germany because Bernhardi wished 
to arouse his people to a danger which he saw 
coming, it is thriving even more luxuriantly in 
England, according to Homer Lea. 

Both conclusions, however, are in error, for in 
so far as Bernhardi preaches that " might is 
right " he is a little German, as Homer Lea is 
voicing the best British traditions when he calls 
on Albion to gird her loins for " it is the first 
duty of the British nation to arrest or destroy 
German power." 

People removed from the seat of the conflict 
should not forget that one of the principles of 
modern warfare is to attack the enemy every- 
where, and not to confine oneself to slaughtering 
his troops. It is considered fair to starve him, 
to deprive him of his credit, and to assail his 
reputation. The obliquity of this course appears 
when it is seen that often untruths are the 
weapons used to achieve this end. Even consci- 
entious papers are unable to ascertain the relia- 
bility of despatches. They therefore print, and 
unwittingly help to disseminate erroneous infor- 
mation. 

On the foundation blocks of such reports a 
structure has been reared into which the few 
definitely known facts seem to fit with great 
nicety. Germany, it has been claimed, is the 
home of that detestable malady called militarism. 



136 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

A victory of the Allies will eradicate it from the 
world. 

It is impossible to answer all the arguments 
which have been advanced by those who would 
make this thesis acceptable in the eyes of Amer- 
icans. Americans hate the evils of militarism 
like no other people and have determined to 
stamp it out from the world. There should be no 
need for such huge armaments as the great pow- 
ers have felt obliged to carry in recent years, and 
while the notion that Germany was the chief 
offender and had been staggering under her bur- 
den, is incorrect, her friends are the first to wel- 
come any means that would reduce the European 
armaments, after this war, to more wholesome 
proportions. 



CHAPTER X 

CONCLUSION 

German statesmen have often called England a 
hypocrite, and themselves have been called un- 
scrupulous believers in the pernicious doctrine 
that might makes right. Both estimates are un- 
just. An individual person may prefer to suffer 
rather than to do or seem to do an unjust act, 
but the men charged with the welfare of a 
nation must make this welfare the main con- 
sideration of their actions. While they will 
shrink from taking an actually unjust 'step, they 
may not feel justified in refraining from doing 
what they think is right and necessary, merely 
because it may appear to be wrong. To this ex- 
tent Germans and Britons are alike. In their 
way of explaining their actions, however, their 
fundamental differences of character are seen. 

The Briton feels obliged to advance some 
kind of a moral reason for what he does, and 
thereby shows that he believes morality should 
rule the actions of nations as well as those of 



138 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

individuals. Sometimes the reason he advances 
seems far-fetched to those who are famihar with 
all the facts, but to those at a distance morality 
seems to have won another victory. 

The German shrinks from advancing a reason 
which is not, in reality, the one that is controlling 
his action. With a regard for morality as high 
as that of the Briton, he refuses to make moral- 
ity an excuse, and when the welfare of the nation 
and dire necessity have forced him to do as he 
did, he baldly states this fact, although his case 
would be stronger in the court of public opinion, 
if he had justified himself. 

The German infringement of the neutrality of 
Luxembourg and Belgium is a case in point. On 
August 4, the German Chancellor announced ^ 
to the Reichstag that by infringing the neutrality 
Germany had broken the law of nations, but that 
Germany was fighting for her existence against 
several foes, and in self-defence had been forced 
to take this step. This open confession, unem- 
bellished by any excuses, is truly German. 

Sometimes a prisoner pleads guilty because he 
is too proud to take advantage of the safeguards 
offered by the law, and then the humane judge 
refuses to accept his plea, and assigns to the 
accused a lawyer. Suppose that In this case the 
court of public opinion should refuse to accept 

iSee Appendix A: The Chancellor's speech. 



CONCLUSION 139 

Germany's plea of guilty, and should insist upon 
a defence. It could be based on several, notice- 
ably three, lines of argument. 

First, Belgium had shown such hostility 
toward Germany and such warm friendship 
toward France in recent years that Germany's 
fear that Belgium would not remain neutral was 
reasonable. An advance by France through Bel- 
gium would have been fatal to Germany, for the 
geographical aspect of the country is such that 
she could not have defended herself here with 
only half of her army, the other half being en- 
gaged on her Eastern frontier. An initial suc- 
cess by the French in that part of Germany 
would have threatened her only big ports, 
Bremen and Hamburg, and her naval base at 
Kiel. Their destruction, however, would have 
been fatal. The artillery at Liege was under the 
instruction of French officers, and the fact that 
these officers were not requested to leave, but 
remained in the country after mobilization was 
ordered in Germany and France, adds to the 
justification of Germany's belief. The law 
knows no favorites. If Germany was right in 
believing that Belgium would not preserve her 
neutrality, the law which forbade her from en- 
tering Belgium would have worked an injustice. 
Belgium was no longer entitled to immunity 
from invasion. Germany is innocent; as wit- 



140 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

nesses, call the files of the Belgium press of the 
past two years, and the French officers who re- 
mained in Liege. 

The second argument would run as follows: 
Belgian neutrality rests on the treaty of 1839, 
which was signed by Great Britain, France, Rus- 
sia, Prussia, and Austria, in addition to Belgium 
and Holland. This treaty was in the nature of 
a contract, and as such enjoys all the validity 
the law gives it. The law, however, does not 
recognize the validity of a contract signed under 
duress. Prussia and Austria were forced to sign 
the treaty. As witnesses, call any creditable his- 
tory describing the events of 1839. As further 
witnesses, call the treaties made by Great Britain 
and Prussia, and Great Britain and France on 
August 9 and 11, 1870, guaranteeing the neutral- 
ity of Belgium during the Franco-Prussian War. 
H Great Britain had considered the neutrality 
agreement of 1839 valid, why should she have 
made another agreement in 1870? Or, if she 
considered the earlier treaty valid, but doubted 
the reliability of the signatories, how could the 
signatures of these powers be said to be more 
trustworthy because they were signed to a new 
treaty? And why did the treaties of 1870 con- 
tain the clause that they were to terminate with 
the end of the war, after which the neutrality of 
Belgium was to rest on whatever validity there 



CONCLUSION 141 

was in the treaty of 1839? Finally, call as wit- 
ness the speeches of Mr. Gladstone, who said in 
1870, referring to the neutrality treaty of Bel- 
gium, " I am not able to subscribe to the doctrine 
of those who have held in this House what 
plainly amounts to an assertion that the simple 
fact of the existence of a guarantee is binding" 
on every party to it, irrespective altogether of 
the particular position in which it may find itself 
at the time when the occasion for acting on the 
guarantee arises." For all these reasons, the 
contract of 1839 is invalid, and Germany is not 
guilty. 

The third line of argument would claim that 
Germany was fighting for her very existence. It 
is immaterial whether her own lack of precau- 
tion had brought her to the pass where she had 
to defend herself from three or more foes. 
Her life was in danger. As witnesses call the 
speeches of King George in proroguing Parlia- 
ment, of Mr. Lloyd George, and of the openly 
expressed intentions of France and Russia. The 
law recognizes self-defence as a valid excuse. 
Germany, therefore, is not guilty. 

Suppose, now, that the judge of public opinion, 
after listening to these arguments, turned to 
Germany and she should repeat, as she probably 
would, that she had felt obliged to act as she did, 
and would leave it to him to decide whether she 



142 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

was guilty or not, would not the judge, before 
passing sentence, call the witnesses demanded by 
counsel, and if some could not be brought into 
court for some time, would he not adjourn the 
case to a later day ? And in the meanwhile, is it 
not the rule in all civilized countries that the ac- 
cused is considered innocent until he has been 
proved guilty? Condemnation on ex parte evi- 
dence is abhorrent to all justice-loving countries, 
and to none perhaps more than to America. 

Similar arguments may be made in defence of 
many further accusations brought against Ger- 
many. Some, however, appear today so well 
substantiated that even unprejudiced people are 
justified in forming an opinion. 

Nothing probably has struck greater horror to 
the hearts of peace-loving people than the drop- 
ping of bombs from Zeppelins and other airships, 
for the resulting loss of life seems so utterly un- 
necessary, and especially pitiful if it hurts non- 
combatants and even maims a little child. The 
excuse that Germany did not sign the Hague 
Conference, which forbade the dropping of 
bombs from the air, cannot justify her. The 
real facts in the case, however, are little known. 
Take for instance the Zeppelin raids on Ant- 
werp. 

Antwerp is a well-fortified city with a com- 
plicated machinery of defence, many forts, and 



CONCLUSION 143 

connections between the forts themselves and the 
city and the forts. There are also means of 
placing a great part of the country outside the 
city under water. The defence of a modern 
fortress offers many technical problems, all of 
which are worked out in detail beforehand. No 
one man — or body of men — can carry the de- 
tails in his head. If the plans are destroyed, a 
vigorous defence of the city becomes impossible. 
The same, of course, will be the case if the pow- 
der magazines and the arsenals are destroyed. 
An attack, therefore, from the air on the military 
headquarters of a fortress, is like an attack on 
the brain of an organism. If it is successful it 
paralyzes the whole body. A Zeppelin raid on 
Antwerp which should destroy the plans of a 
working defence, or the supply of ammunition 
and provisions, would save the attacking army 
hundreds if not thousands of lives. From this 
point of view, therefore, it is not at all wanton, 
but actually humane. 

But, it has been advanced, no bombardment 
should be made without previously giving notice 
of the intention to begin the bombardment, ac- 
cording to the rules of the Hague Conference. 
This is a mistake similar to many others made 
by people who believe that the Hague Conference 
laid down a complete set of laws. The Hague 
Conference contains only those stipulations on 



144 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

which all the nations signing them could agree. 
But it requested the several nations to issue com- 
plete regulations to their troops for use in war. 
In these the Hague paragraphs were to be incor- 
porated. The British had no such regulations 
until recently, while the French and German 
regulations are not at hand. It may, however, 
be even better to judge the conduct of the con- 
testants, not by their individual interpretations 
of the Hague agreements, but by the regulations 
issued to the army of the United States. These 
have been re-printed and issued, together with 
the Texts of the Peace Conferences at The 
Hague, by the International School of Peace, 
Boston, 1908. 

Paragraph 19 says : " But it is no infraction of 
the common law of war to omit thus to inform 
the enemy [of an intended bombardment]. Sur- 
prise may be a necessity." 

Paragraph 26 says : " The people and their 
civil officers owe strict obedience to them [com- 
manding generals of the invading army] as long 
as they hold sway over the district or country, 
at the peril of their lives." 

Paragraph 27 in speaking of retaliations says : 
" A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponent 
no other means of securing himself against the 
repetition of barbarous outrage." 

Paragraph 54 acknowledges the right to de- 



CONCLUSION 145 

mand hostages, although they " are rare in the 
present age." 

Paragraph 82 has reference to the so-called 
franc tireurs, and says that they " shall be treated 
summarily as highway robbers or pirates." 

All these things are utterly abhorrent to most 
people, who consider them survivals of an earlier 
time. So they are, but they are the rules by 
which the awful game of war is played. Let us 
condemn the game, or all that take part in it, 
but let us not single out one of the participants, 
as long as he keeps within the rules, and make 
him the recipient of the indignation which be- 
longs to the rules of war as such, especially not 
when we know the disparity in the amount of 
news which can reach us from the several armies. 



APPENDIX A 

THE chancellor's SPEECH IN THE REICHSTAG, 
AUGUST 5, 19 14 

A TERRIBLE fate is breaking over Europe. Since 
we won in war the respect of the world for our 
German Empire we have hved in peace forty- 
four years, and have guarded the peace of Eu- 
rope. In peaceful labor we have grown strong 
and mighty ; and people have envied us. In nervy 
patience we have suffered hostilities to be fanned 
in the east and the west, and fetters to be forged 
against us. The wind was sown there, and now 
we have the whirlwind. We wanted to go on 
living and working in peace, and like a silent 
vow, from the Emperor down to the youngest 
recruit, this was the will: Our sword shall not 
be drawn except in a just cause. Now the day 
has come when we must draw it. Russia has put 
the torch to our house. We have been forced 
into a war with Russia and France. 

Gentlemen, a number of papers penned in the 
stress of hurrying events have been distributed to 



APPENDIX A 147 

you.^ Let me single out the facts which charac- 
terize our action. 

From the first moment of the Austrian con- 
flict we strove and labored that this conflict 
might be confined to Austria-Hungary and Ser- 
via. All the cabinets, notably the English cabi- 
net, took the same ground, only Russia insisted 
that she would have to say a word. This was 
the beginning of the danger threatening Europe. 
As soon as the first definite news of military- 
preparations in Russia reached us, we declared 
in St. Petersburg, kindly but firmly, that military 
preparations against us would force us to take 
similar steps, and that mobilization and war are 
not far apart. Russia assured us in the most 
friendly way that she was taking no measures 
against us. England in the meanwhile was try- 
ing to mediate between Austria and Servia, and 
was receiving our hearty support. On July 28 
the Emperor telegraphed to the Czar asking him 
to consider that Austria had the right and the 
duty to protect herself against the Greater- 
Servian plots which threatened to undermine her 
existence. The Emperor called the Czar's atten- 
tion to their common monarchical interest 

^ These papers the New York Times printed as The German 
White Paper," obviously a misnomer. While the Times deserves 
thanks for having published this information, the comparison of 
this hurried compilation with the well arranged British White 
Paper has been unfavorable to the cause of Germany. 



148 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

against the crime of Serajevo, and asked the 
Czar to help him personally to smooth away the 
difficulties between Vienna and St. Petersburg. 
At about the same time, and before he had re- 
ceived this telegram, the Czar asked the Emperor 
to help him and to counsel moderation in Vienna. 
The Emperor accepted the part of mediator, but 
he has hardly begun to act, when Russia mobil- 
izes all her troops against Austria-Hungary. 
Austria-Hungary on the other hand had mobil- 
ized only her army corps on the Servian frontier, 
and two other corps in the north, but far re- 
moved from Russia. The Emperor at once 
points out to the Czar that the Russian mobiliza- 
tion makes his mediation, undertaken at the 
Czar's request, very difficult if not impossible. 
We nevertheless continue our mediation even to 
the extreme limit permitted by our alliance. 
During this time Russia of her own accord re- 
peats her assurance that she is taking no military 
preparations against us. 

Then there arrives the 31st of July. In 
Vienna a decision is due. We have already suc- 
ceeded so far that Vienna has renewed a personal 
exchange of opinion with St. Petersburg, which 
had stopped for some time, but even before a 
decision is made in Vienna, we receive the news 
that Russia is mobilizing her entire army — that 
is, she is mobilizing also against us. The Rus- 



APPENDIX A 149 

sian Government, which from our repeated repre- 
sentations knows what a mobiHzation on our 
frontier means, does not notify us, and gives us 
no explanatory reply. Not until July 31st in the 
afternoon a telegram is received from the Czar 
in which he says that his army is taking no pro- 
vocative attitude towards us. But — the Russian 
mobilization on our frontier was vigorously be- 
gun as early as during the night of July 30th. 
While we are still trying to mediate in Vienna 
at Russia's request, the whole Russian military 
force rises on our long, almost open frontier; 
and France, while she is not yet mobilizing, con- 
fesses that she is making military preparations. 
And we? We had intentionally refrained, up to 
that moment, from calling a single reservist to 
the colors — for the sake of the peace of Europe. 
Should we now be waiting any longer, until the 
powers between whom we are wedged in would 
choose their own moment of attack? To expose 
Germany to this danger would have been a 
crime! For this reason we demanded at once, 
on July 31st, that Russia demobilize, which ac- 
tion alone could still have preserved the peace of 
Europe. The Imperial Ambassador in St. Pe- 
tersburg was simultaneously instructed to declare 
that we should have to consider ourselves at war 
with Russia, if she declined. The Imperial Am- 
bassador has followed his instructions. 



150 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

Even tcKiay we do not yet know Russia's reply 
to our demand that she demobiHze. No tele- 
graphic news has reached us, although the tele- 
graph went on for a while communicating many 
less important matters. So it came that when 
the time limit was long past the Emperor was 
obliged to mobilize our military forces at five 
o'clock in the afternoon of August ist. At the 
same time we had to ask for assurances as to the 
attitude of France. She replied to our definite 
inquiry whether she would be neutral in a 
Russian-German war by saying that she would 
do what her interests demanded. This was an 
evasion of our question if not a negative reply. 
The Emperor nevertheless ordered that the 
French frontier be respected in its entirety. This 
order has been rigorously obeyed with one single 
exception. France, who mobilized at the same 
hour that we did, declared that she would respect 
a zone of ten kilometers on our frontier. And 
what did really happen? Bomb throwing, flyers, 
cavalry scouts, and companies invading Alsace- 
Lorraine. Thus France attacked us before war 
had been declared. 

As regards the one exception I mentioned, I 
have received this report from the General 
Staff : " As regards the French complaints con- 
cerning our transgressing her frontier, only one 



APPENDIX A 151 

case is to be acknowledged. Contrary to definite 
orders a patrol of the 14th Army Corps, led 
it would seem by an officer, crossed the frontier 
on August 2d. It appears that all were shot ex- 
cept one man, who returned. But long before 
this one act of crossing the frontier took place, 
French flyers dropped bombs as far from France 
as South Germany, and near the Schluchtpass 
French troops made an attack on our frontier 
guards. Thus far our troops have confined 
themselves to the protection of our frontier." 
This is the report of the General Staf¥. 

We have been forced into a state of self-de- 
fence, and the necessity of self-defence knows no 
other law. Our troops have occupied Luxem- 
burg, and have perhaps already been obliged to 
enter Belgian territory. That is against the rules 
of international law. It is true that the French 
Government announced in Brussels that it would 
respect Belgian neutrality as long as its oppo- 
nents would do so. But we knew that France 
was ready for an invasion of Belgium. France 
could afford to wait. We could not wait. An 
attack on our flank on the lower Rhine might 
have been fatal. We were therefore obliged to 
disregard the protest of the Luxemburg and Bel- 
gian governments. For the wrong we have done 
thereby we shall try to atone, as soon as our mill- 



152 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

tary end is obtained. People who like ourselves 
are fighting for their lives and homes must think 
of naught but how they may survive. 

Gentlemen, we are standing shoulder to shoul- 
der with Austria-Hungary. As regards the atti- 
tude of England, Sir Edward Grey's remarks 
yesterday in the lower house of Parliament have 
shown what her stand will be. We have assured 
the English Government that we shall not attack 
the north coast of France as long as England 
remains neutral, and that we shall not infringe 
the territorial integrity and independence of Bel- 
gium. This assurance I here repeat before the 
whole world ; and I may add, as long as England 
remains neutral, we shall not even take any hos- 
tile measures against the French merchant 
marine, provided France will treat our merchant- 
men in the same way. 

Gentlemen, this was the course of events. 
Germany enters this war with a clear conscience. 
We are fighting to protect the fruits of our peace- 
ful labor, and our heritage of the great past. 
We are fighting for our future. The fifty years 
are not yet past during which Moltke used to 
say we should have to remain armed if we were 
to protect our heritage and our achievements of 
1870. 

Now the supreme hour has come which will 



APPENDIX A 153 

test our people. But it finds us ready and full 
of confidence. Our army is in the field, our fleet 
is well prepared, and back of them stands the 
whole German people — The Whole German 
People. 



APPENDIX Bi 

QUOTATIONS FROM THE BRITISH " BERNHARDI " 

The Day of the Saxon by Homer Lea, Harper 
& Bros., London and New York, 1912. Dedi- 
cated to Field Marshal Lord Roberts. 

It is the first duty of the British nation to 
arrest or destroy German power. (Page 204.) 

The neutrality of a minor state, once it is in- 
cluded in the theater of war waged between 
greater nations, becomes an anomaly. (Page 

2I3-) 

Whenever it becomes apparent that one Euro- 
pean state or racial coalition is seeking the over- 
lordship of Europe ... it at once becomes im- 
perative upon the British nation to destroy this 
power and the means that make it possible. 
(Page 214.) 

The occupation [of a neutral country] . . . 
arouses in the British nation the appearance of 
great opposition to the violation of neutral ter- 
ritory. This is false, for the Empire is not 
moved by the sanctity of neutrality. It is only 
a means of avoiding responsibility and shifting 
* See also Chapters I and IX, 



APPENDIX B 155 

it upon these nations, deluding themselves with 
the belief that such declarations are inviolable; 
whereas no nation has violated neutral territory 
and denied their obligations more frequently 
than the Saxon. (Page 226.) 

National disintegration originates in peace. 
(Page 233.) 

If the Saxon race is to survive it can do so 
only as a whole (i) through the military and 
naval unification of the Empire; (2) the com- 
plete separation of the military and naval system 
from the civil government of the dominions and 
colonies; (3) the introduction of universal and 
compulsory military service among the Saxons 
throughout the Empire; (4) all armies to be 
organized on the basis of expeditionary forces; 
(5) the size and distribution of the Imperial 
armies to be determined by the size and distribu- 
tion of its probable adversaries; (6) the mili- 
tancy of the Saxon race, and the actual military 
power of the Empire increased with every mili- 
tary increment made by nations whose natural 
lines of expansion are toward territories and 
peoples now under British dominion; (7) the 
military and political unity of the Empire must 
progress toward greater centralization as the 
population of its component parts is increased. 
(Pages 239, 240.) 

A confederacy i§ an old ignorance. It is a 



156 WHAT GERMANY WANTS 

falsification of political independence, and has no 
more a place in a modern state than have those 
other blind errors nations have put away for- 
ever. (Page 241.) 

The brutality of all national development is 
apparent, and we make no excuse for it. To 
conceal it w^ould be a denial of fact; to glamour 
it over, an apology to truth. There is little in 
life that is not brutal except our ideal. As we 
increase the aggregate of individuals and their 
collective activities, we increase proportionately 
their brutality. (Page 10.) 

Only the immediate causes and manner of war, 
those last straws that break down the peace of 
nations, alter from age to age. In the past it 
was the individual who was the predominant 
factor, today, nations, tomorrow, races. (Page 

There can be no further extension of British 
Sovereignty without encroachment upon the po- 
litical rights and territorial possessions of other 
nations. (Page 23.) 

It is very simple, this irrevocable law of war. 
It is terrible in its simplicity. (Page 23.) 

For a Saxon to deny war is to epitomize human 
vanity. (Page 22.) 

In the development of the Russian Empire 
man has more nearly approached those character- 
istics that mark the measured, unhurried growth 



APPENDIX B 157 

of Nature. In its extension it has moved onward 
with elemental propulsion. Like a glacier, its 
movement is only apparent by periods of time. 
So imperceptible is the terrible, imperturbable 
grind of its way that we do not perceive its 
progress until it has passed a given point. What 
it does not crush it erodes. What it does not 
erode it forces on in front until into some crev- 
asse, great or small, it pushes the debris that 
impedes its way. It moves on. (Page io6.) 

There is a savage sublimity in this thought — 
to use empires as stepping stones. (Page 146.) 
/ Wars have brought about the formation of this 
Empire and wars will prolong or shorten its 
existence. (Page 3.) 

By wars and conquests, by theft and intrigue, 
by the same brutal use of physical power, was it 
[the British Empire] put together piece by piece. 
(Page 10.) 

The scorn of war, like the denial of death, 
belongs to the same category of self-deception. 
(Page 6.) 



THE END 



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